"We're not on Earth then?"
I've spent ages trying to decide which quote to use for this episode as it's just bursting with fabulous and significant lines. Regular viewers may be noticing that a quote is becoming very popular with me to open each blog. In the end, I chose this as the most significant in terms of the series' burgeoning development and indeed Barbara's personal development for it is she who asks. She already knows the answer, but asks anyway, the way we all do when we want something confirming that we'd rather not know.
You could have had: "Ian, where are we?" (A question I'm very familiar with myself); "Why doesn't he take us back?"; "I'm not sure he can."; "What, ever?"; "I hate it as much as you, I'm just as afraid."; "Nothing on Earth could look like this." and many, many more.
This script sparkles in the way that the very first episode did five weeks ago (gosh, as long ago as that?) It is intriguing, beautifully written and acted, and again only features the four TARDIS travellers in speaking roles. This really feels like we're motoring again and I have a feeling that the unfortunate cave-dwellers are soon to be forgotten.
The over-exposure at the beginning of the film oddly adds to the atmosphere rather than detracting from it and what I initially thought was a bit of a mistake having forest again so quickly actually emphasises that this is a very different situation to before.
And then we have the metaltron! Now, I know that's not it's name, but it's as good as any other and hang it all the very first Dr Who monster ought to have a name, albeit one borrowed from another Dalek adventure far in the future. Or the past, depending on how you look at it. The metaltron is great; bug-eyed, spiky and shiny. And a bit baleful because this poor creature has been petrified along with everything else. The Doctor's theory that it was held together by inner magnetism and may even have attracted it's victims towards it, presumably other metal creatures, is great fun. A shame creatures this odd were never explored further.
But hey, like the cavemen, the metaltron is about to be over-shadowed by one of the best and most-enduring science-fiction creations of all time. It's just dawned on me that this short period of the show, Dr Who before the Daleks is akin to the six short episodes at the start of Patrick Troughton's time before Jamie. A glimpse of what might have been. I've always thought that the Daleks were a glorious shot in the arm, but that I would have much preferred Ben and Polly to carry on instead of Jamie. But hey, just before the metallic lovelies appear and literally take over the show, let's take note of a few other lovely touches in this episode. The way the Doctor manipulates the mercury situation. Just exploring wasn't seen as enough of a motivation at the beginning of the series, there had to a physical obstacle to the travellers just leaving when they'd had enough; the tribe blocking the way with spears in the last serial and the need to find mercury in this one. It's worth noting these early devices.
And then they get ill. I'm feeling pretty fluey while I'm writing this, with no energy to leave the house, so heaven knows how they're feeling having to explore an alien city while suffering from radiation sickness just because some old duffer has conned them into a wild goose chase. And then Barbara goes missing!
Here now one of my very favourite bits of the whole thing. [I often feel drawn to portentousness writing this blog and have to stop myself otherwise we'll all be here forever] Barbara walks through the city, ducking frequently through the doorways - genius. The Dalek city is built for Daleks, not for humans, which adds so much to the claustrophobic feel.
And then we cut to something else's point of view, we don't know what or who, but judging from Barbara's reaction this is pretty terrifying. Oh, to have been a little boy watching this just before Christmas in 1963 and yearning for the week to go by for the next instalment. You're there thinking Christmas is exciting. Well boy, just you wait till next Saturday when you see a Dalek for the very first time in your life. Now that's exciting! True Boy's Own Serial stuff. It's still absolutely brilliant now.
Next episode: The Survivors
