The Edge of Destruction

"I can't take you back, Susan, I can't."

I've put the RT article at the top of this post to help you try to make sense of this episode (you'll need all the help you can get!)

Well, what did you think? I thought it was odd. Very odd. It's so early on in the series and so experimental. While I was watching I thought that perhaps they got away with it because the programme was brand new and so most people didn't have a clue what was going on anyway.

Good points? A fantastic opportunity to see the beautifully detailed TARDIS set with all of its nooks and crannies and control banks and strange suspended cylinders. This episode is fabulously lit, notably towards the end when the Doctor is sitting in his chair illuminated by a knave of light. I've never seen the set lit like that before or since and it's so evocative of a church. Talking of churches, after Susan gets changed into that flat black smock and then has to have a lie down with a cooling cloth on her head after attacking Barbara with the scissors (bit strong, those scissor sister scenes) she looks like a medieval French Nun.

They all behave very oddly until the Doctor has a pop at Barbara. What a mistake-a to make-a. And then the whole thing gets very, very good. I do feel that David Whitaker's strength was in dialogue rather than plotting. Consequently Barbara's row with the Doctor is sensational and, in my opinion, crucial to the development of the series. For this is the point where everything changes and all the fear and doubt and suspicion between the two pairs of characters comes to a head and then is gradually replaced by trust and understanding and eventually love. I may be wrong, but from memory this is the pivot.

And how utterly bloody marvellous is Jacqueline Hill? This will be a recurring theme on these pages, but with good reason. Long one of my favourite companions and actors, I can't take my eyes off her. She is mesmerising, and the character of Barbara such a perfect foil for the Doctor. It's a wonderful moment after the row when the Doctor appears with a tray of drinks and is utterly charming. I'm still not convinced he hasn't slipped something in them to knock them all out. He's still manipulative to get his own way and skips about the console room when they're all unconscious. It's a genuine surprise when he finds himself with unknown hands around his throat.

However odd this episode is , and it is very odd (did I mention that?), it's again strikingly directed by Richard Martin. Ian's new favourite director.

And I meant to tell you that I'm about to be born. No really I am. Next Thursday. At midday. Keep an eye out. As a child I was stupidly proud when I found out I had been born between the two episodes of a rare two part Dr Who story. I mentioned this to my Dad a few years ago when the video first came out. He was singularly unimpressed!]

Next episode: The Brink of Disaster (I would like to make clear that this refers to the next episode of Dr Who that we will be watching and not to my impending entre into the world)

The Ordeal

"Do you always do what Ian says?"

I, of course, have a vested interest in the answer to this question being yes, but in this case it is aptly asked by Gannatus as he and Barbara find themselves thrown together quite literally as she gamely hangs on to his leather trousers.

So much is in this episode, another of Richard Martin's, who however much I adore Christopher Barry's work on Doctor Who, I feel does slightly have the edge.

Dark and claustrophobic and intense. Some great moments: where the Doctor and Susan think they have short-circuited the Dalek systems and immediately find themselves surrounded by clutching, grabbing Daleks and that lovely scene where they both are kneeling on the floor that makes the metal meanies seem enormous and indomitable.

And where poor dear Antodus tries to duck out, but is trapped and so makes the so unwilling and half-hearted jump that results in him (and us!) left dangling at the end of the episode with poor Ian clinging to the rock by his fingernails. What a delicious moment slightly earlier when Ian throws the rope to him which falls flacidly to the floor as he makes no attempt to catch it. Poor Antodus. I remember this trek vividly from the probably hundreds of times that I read David Whitaker's novelisation of this story.

"I stopped the car at last and let the fog close in around me..." That first line of the book rates for me as highly as "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" and Marc Platt's sublime "Time's roses are scented with memory."

What joy. And all that plus Nazi saluting Daleks and Doctors hiding behind rocks. This is bliss; and always will be.

Next episode: The Rescue