The Warriors of Death

"They call me the Doctor. I am a scientist, an engineer; I am a builder of things."

Doesn't she look magnificent in this beautiful 'Sun God' costume? Absolutely fantastic.

This episode starts with the Doctor dressing down Barbara in a full scale row. He is harsh, annoyed that she has jeopardised them all. To him, Ian and Barbara must seem almost as primitive as the Aztecs. Only when she gets upset does he soften, and we see the real affection he has developed for her.

I forgot to say last time that our heroes are once again barred from leaving in the TARDIS by another physical barrier, a hallmark of the early days of the series. Here the Doctor tries gamely to get his hands on the plans of the Temple to discover the mechanism for opening the sealed tomb from the outside. I like that his machinations, and indeed his later intervention, both lead to poor Ian being drugged by Ixtar.

The direction is again complex and clever; there's a memorable ultra-close two shot of Tlotoxl and Barbara as they vie for power. The picture quality has improved with the new cameras which are also able to take longer shots than in Lime grove, making the Temple set look even more impressive. And a note about the engaging and atmospheric music, an early work by the film composer to be, Richard Rodney Bennett.

I'd like to touch on the quote at the top of this piece and the notion of the Doctor as an engineer and 'a builder of things'. This became a little lost as the series developed, and indeed I think the Doctor himself would describe himself nowadays more as an 'Adventurer'. But this line gives a hint to his origins, and his life on Gallifrey before he 'stole' the TARDIS. The line, and William Hartnell's delivery, suggest to me that he might just as easily have been called 'the Fixer.' It is touched upon again eventually in 'Remembrance of the Daleks', a great favourite of mine, as we see the Doctor perhaps as a former stellar engineer and manipulator of the 'Hand of Omega', the Time Lord equivalent of the hand of god. If he works on that scale, it is no wonder that he wants to explore the Universe, and treats the TARDIS, at which we marvel, as merely a form of transport.

Next episode: The Bride of Sacrifice

Nicholas Courtney

Today came the frankly heartbreaking news of the death of Nicholas Courtney. As observed by The Guardian newspaper, this has struck genuine sadness throughout the world of Doctor Who and indeed the world at large.

Although he has yet to appear on these pages, his contribution to Doctor Who, both on-screen and off, was simply enormous and he will be dearly, dearly missed by all of us.

Next episode: The Warriors of Death

The Temple of Evil

"You can't rewrite history. Not one line!"

That legendary quote is this story in a nutshell. As with 'The Daleks' I am blissfully over-familiar with John Lucarotti's second historical script for this first season and its high production values.

The aspect that has stood out most for me, watching it for the umpteenth time again this afternoon, is the direction. The whole episode, from the opening shot (pictured above) onwards, is beautifully and ambitiously directed by John Crockett. It makes me wonder if the fourth, and only, episode of Marco Polo which he directed might actually have differed in style quite considerably from Waris Hussein's.

The camera is hardly ever still; no mean feat with the heavy, clunky machinery of Lime Grove's Studio D. What is truly remarkable, however, is the choreography. Guards and processions and characters moving in and out of shot are all superbly handled in this real tour de force of 1960s drama. Consequently, it is a real pleasure to watch. I'm very interested to see if it gets noticeably easier to accommodate this fluid style in the ultra modern, for the time, Television Centre Studio 3 in the next instalment.

So much for the technicalities, the story itself belongs to Barbara, and to Jacqueline Hill:

If you've followed this blog from the beginning, you'll know how much I adore this companion and this actress. The depth she brings to the character of Barbara is just phenomenal. You can actually see on Barbara's face the moment when she makes her mind up to challenge the status quo and reform the Aztecs, much to the Doctor's horror. I honestly don't think that we meet another companion who will stand up to the Doctor quite as strongly until Tegan, and it is of course upon the original line-up that John Nathan-Turner would base his companions.

Amongst all this, the Doctor charms and is in return charmed by Cameca, Ian finds he is to challenge the established warrior champion, and John Ringham gives a remarkable and malevolent turn as Tlotoxl who proclaims at the end of the episode, "She is a false goddess, and I will destroy her!"

Gripping stuff. Stand by for:

Next episode: The Warriors of Death

Article: Nicholas Courtney

Robin Phillips

Sadly, Robin Phillips passed away on 25th July 2015.  He had a long and distinguished career as an actor and director.

The Keys of Marinus

"I don't believe that man was made to be controlled by machines."

After a great performance of sobbing in front of Barbara and then laughing when she has left, Kala slips up and is unmasked as the kidnapper of Susan and murderer of her husband.

Our travellers set off with the keys for home; in vision this time against a black backcloth.

They find Arbitan looking a bit thinner and behaving rather shyly until he is revealed as Yartek, leader of the Voords!

Stephen Dartnell gives a great performance here as the man inside the mask.

He returns in a months time to play John in 'The Sensorites'. I can't wait.

The Voord masks are really well done and I feel I must flag up their significance as the first masked humanoid 'monsters' of the series, a successful template that was to be repeated literally hundreds of times in Dr Who. The Daleks design is superb, but they are a brilliant one-off. A few attempts were made to repeat their success, the Mechanoids and the Chumblies, but the Daleks were always so much better because of the genius of Ray Cusick. No, the most enduring and oft-repeated model for a Dr Who monster is the rubber-suited Voord.

And so Yartek is deceived by the fake key and blows himself and the other Voords to pieces. There is a touching scene between the Doctor and Sabena as the old man talks about the death of Arbitan, her father. We really see the Doctor as a father and grandfather here.

Of course we can't leave this story without one more shot of those wonderful legs...

And so our travellers depart silently in their tiny model TARDIS again and a second story finishes without a cliffhanger allowing us to imagine unseen adventures before one of my absolute favourites...

Next episode: The Temple of Evil

Article: Robin Phillips

Sentence of Death

"Who? He's the Doctor."

Yay, he's back! Look, down there on the right. 

Just in time to try to save Ian from certain death. Another huge change of scene for this episode as we find ourselves caught up in a not very alien courtroom drama. The only significant difference is that people are guilty until proven innocent in this society. It strikes me that, apart from the radical change of location at the end of 'An Unearthly Child', this is perhaps the only story where the location changes every week along with the episode title. It must have been a very different experience watching Dr Who in the early sixties, not knowing how long each story was going to be.

Some more of Ray Cusick's set photographs...

Two of my favourite Dr Who actors appear together in this episode; the lovely Martin Cort who returns to the series in 'The Seeds of Death' and gives a wonderful turn as the terrified Locke. And Fiona Walker, later to delight us as Lady Peinforte in 'Silver Nemesis'. Here, she is wonderful as the dark and manipulative Kala, the series' first female villain. Hurrah!

Poor Aydan (Martin Cort), keeps giving himself away rather easily, but then they do only have an episode to get through this. The themes are adult; a death sentence, murder, perjury, domestic abuse and kidnap. Blimey. I love the scene where Aydan is murdered by an unknown assassin and the camera pans slowly across all of the shocked faces in silence before Kala (Fiona Walker) rushes forward, distraught.

As Gareth Roberts pointed out, "So weirdly like Lee Harvey Oswald that bit. And so soon!"

The trial continues:

A couple of lovely colour photos from the trial scenes....

We end with rather a good and chilling phonecall from Susan, "They're going to kill me."

Next episode: The Keys of Marinus

The Snows of Terror

"You don't kill people in this country. The cold and the wolves do that."

Brrr. Poor Ian and Barbara get rescued by Vasor the Furrier, but it's a case of out of the fridge into the freezer as the trapper makes some decidedly horrible moves on Barbara when Ian goes to find Altos. He finds he has bitten off more than he can chew (my metaphors are getting out of control) when she, well, bites him as she tries to get to the door.

Good on yer, girl!

The scene where Barbara tenderly rubs the feeling back into Ian's frostbitten hands is touching and the one where Ian does the same to Altos's legs (I'm not obsessed, I'm not) is borderline hysterical, particularly when you consider that Altos, as one reviewer rather marvellously puts it, 'is as gay as a goose'.

I quite like this episode with its caves and snow and ice soldiers and stock footage of the wolves.

Talking of stock, the music used over the rope bridge scenes seems to bear no relevance to the action and sounds like an alternative 60s ensemble playing rather loudly in the next cave. There's a bizarre moment when Susan, who screams at her own shadow, doesn't utter a peep when she's actually in real danger crawling across the three feet wide abyss.

Here's Verity watching Ray Cusick set up the 'bridge'.

When everyone gets back to Vasor's shack (love the all too brief little model shot of it in the snow, complete with smoking chimney)

I couldn't for the life of me work out why Ian and co hadn't taken the keys and the travel bracelets with them the first time until I realised that it provides a rather graphic revenge moment. Serves Vasor right, the nasty beast.

And so they pop off, out of vision again, to the next location. This one is rather inspired because Ian arrives next to a freshly murdered body and is soon bludgeoned and set up with the murder weapon. Great fun, and our anticipation is increased by...

Next episode: Sentence of Death

You know, I'd forgotten that the Doctor is supposed to be in this programme! Don't worry though, he's back next week.

"And now on BBC1..."

A small, but interesting snippet. The episode below, 'The Screaming Jungle', was the first ever episode of Dr Who to be shown on BBC1. Yes, really, because BBC2 was launched on the Monday following 'The Velvet Web' and up until that time BBC1 as we know it now was simply BBC-tv. And in 1963-64 when Dr Who began it was usual to have 'in-vision' continuity announcers such as the lovely and much lamented Anne Gregg, seen here when she was just 24.

Next episode: The Snows of Terror

The Screaming Jungle

"This whole place is one big booby trap!"

And she's not wrong. This is a lovely linear episode, moving from left to right around Lime Grove's Studio D. We start in the jungle where Susan hears voices and noises and decides to have a nervous breakdown. Maybe it's the thought of another jungle. And she did so well on Skaro.

There are some lovely set designs by Ray Cusick...

Then we move through the arch and find the statue with the human arms.

We're just wondering if this is stretching believability a bit far when there's a fabulous moment of realism as the soldier statue takes a swipe at Ian, even leaving an imprint of its axe on the paving slab. Great stuff, and unknowingly prescient of the marvellous Gundan robots far, far in the series' future.

While Ian goes to get an iron bar and ends up behind a load of them, Barbara moves through a door and finds herself in a chain mail net under a descending ceiling bristling with sharp sticks!

Luckily our trap setter gets to her in time and we move through the next door in time to rescue him from his own botched experiment.

I know it was his own silly fault, but I felt rather sorry for Darrius (in the picture above with Barbara). He's obviously lived alone for ages and then when genuine people turn up he pops his clogs within five minutes of meeting them. (The actor does reappear, however, in several future stories playing William Hartnell's double.)

Through one last door to my favourite scene with Ian and Barbara looking for DE302 in Darrius's laboratory as the jungle encroaches.

I was taken right back to the two of them in Ian's own laboratory in Coal Hill School and reminded that their utter realism is so important in order to contrast with the alien worlds around them. And I count our own past and the Doctor and Susan amongst those. Two great actors playing two strong and well-drawn characters.

They find the key and escape in the nick of time only to find themselves freezing to death in...

Next episode: The Snows of Terror

Article: And Now on BBC1...

The Velvet Web

"You can't apply Earth standards here, you just can't!"

Phew. It's ok, Barbara's fine. My heart would have been in my mouth for a week if I'd seen this back then. And look where's she's ended up:

Isn't that lovely? One of the things that I most like about this story is the variety of societies and environments that exist on one planet. This seems much more realistic to me, more like here on Earth.

But the idyll does as idylls must and so this one does not last for long. Ian's scepticism proves to be well founded; I love the scene where Barbara is the only one who can see that the place is in a state of decay and that the clothes are rags.

It's clever, particularly when Ian, Susan and the Doctor are at the end of her bed looking to camera. Director John Gorrie has several attempts at unusual shots during this episode which help to move it beyond its obvious limitations. Shooting the Morphotons from behind reinforces that they are trapped in glass cases:

I'm rather fond of the Morphotons.....

But Barbara has other ideas...

The Doctor picking up a tatty old mug in an empty room and marvelling at the quality of the instruments is nicely played, as is his motivation for requesting a laboratory in the first place - to fix part of the TARDIS.

Our regulars are joined by Sabina and Altos. Ah, Altos. The longest legs to ever appear in Dr Who I think, and possibly the shortest pants. Not until Turlough in 'Planet of Fire' will I marvel at such legs again. They deserve a colour picture:

And another...

William Hartnell is about to begin a two week holiday and so the Doctor is particularly cheerful about abandoning his companions and leaping ahead to find the last key.  Here's a lovely rehearsal shot of him without the Doctor's wig:

And finally, a few last photos from the production of this episode...

What a treat.

It is Susan's turn to go ahead into jeopardy this week and she is soon hearing voices. I hope the jungle knows what it's let itself in for as next week it encounters 'The Screaming Susan'. Oops, I mean of course,

Next episode: The Screaming Jungle