4.02 The Tenth Planet
First Doctor with Ben and Polly
Follows on from Season One, Season Two, Season Three and The Smugglers
DOCTOR: This old body of mine is wearing a bit thin.
Overview
So here we are. After 29 adventures told across 134 episodes, the First Doctor's time finally comes to an end, and with it comes the greatest innovation in the history of Doctor Who: the introduction of the concept of regeneration, the ailing Doctor renewing himself by means of a complete physical transformation so that the adventure ends with our first glimpse of Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor. The success of this gambit ensured the longevity of the show and is the foremost reason it is still with us today.
Three out of four episodes of this adventure still exist to be viewed as originally intended but of course it would be the fourth episode that is missing, the one with the regeneration. A clip containing the crucial last minutes of the episode, the regeneration scene, has managed to survive, however, and is available to be viewed, while the missing fourth episode is one of only a handful that have been animated for a DVD release, the animation matched to the original soundtrack.
With Hartnell's ailing Doctor sidelined for a chunk of the adventure, new companions Ben and Polly are called on to carry large portions of this story, which they manage well this is their third adventure, but their first encounter with aliens, as The Tenth Planet sees the introduction of the show's second-most iconic monsters: the Cybermen. This is also the first real 'base under siege' story of the show, a format that would become a particular staple of the Troughton era.
Another point worth noting, for interest and amusement: the televised story The Tenth Planet is set in the year 1986. The novelisation of the story, written around 20 years later at about the time it should have been taking place, sets it instead in the year 2000 but then the novelisation of the following story, Power of the Daleks, refers back to this one but sets it in 1996!
The plot, in a nutshell, is this: the Doctor, Ben and Polly arrive at a remote base in the South Pole in the near future, just in time to face an invasion of Cybermen, who plan to suck the Earth dry and convert its population. With the Doctor taken ill and fading fast, can his inexperienced companions save the day?
Writer Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis
Director Derek Martinus
Script editor Gerry Davies
Producer Innes Lloyd
Observations
Random thoughts while watching:
Episode One
The story opens with a shot of a rocket being launched something we would never have seen just two or three years earlier, at the start of the show. And, like The War Machines two serials ago, there are customised titles for this adventure, designed to look like a computer printout. This is the fourth season of the show and the limits of what is technically possible are already being pushed forward, new creative ideas being explored.
The action begins at International Space Command's Snowcap Base in the South Pole, where a General Cutler and his team are supervising the mission of the Zeus IV space shuttle, running a routine probe on the Earth's atmosphere. I like that we get this time setting the scene, seeing how the base operates, the relaxed yet professional dynamic among its staff. I also appreciate the variety of accents among the staff and astronauts an early attempt at a multi-cultural vision of the future, including a black astronaut.
Spoiler alert: the black astronaut dies in episode two. Some would argue that this is an example of ingrained racism, 'the black man always dies' trope, but I don't think so in this case. The role isn't written as black, it's written as an astronaut, one of two, both of whom die, along with quite a number of other people, because it's that kind of story. It would have been very easy to simply cast another white man for the part and have done with it, so instead of complaining that the black astronaut dies, when the loss of both astronauts is an integral part of the plot regardless of who plays them, I'd rather be glad that the show chose to cast a black man in that role, portrayed as educated and successful, articulate and professional. That kind of representation matters, putting a black man in space in 1966, saying 'this is where we expect to be in just two decades from now'. It's just a shame there aren't any women this is the second adventure in a row with no women at all beyond the Doctor's companion.
The TARDIS lands at the South Pole, right alongside the Snowcap base I love the model shots and set dressing for this. Inside, the Doctor has introduced Polly and Ben to his wardrobe in search of cold weather gear. I enjoy Polly's enthusiasm for the wardrobe she's a girly girl and unashamed of it, and it is her nature to be upbeat and positive. She's adjusted well to being swept away from all she knew, accepting what can't be changed and making the best of it, enjoying the experience. Ben plays along, the pair of them joking and teasing, until the Doctor chides them about not being serious enough when they don't know where they are spoilsport!
So they go outside to explore and are instantly spotted on the periscope by the base crew, who, being an all-male crowd, are delighted to see a woman but alarmed that anyone is there at all. Our intrepid heroes are apprehended at once and taken into the base.
Ha, I love snarky Doctor, grouching 'why don't you speak up, I'm deaf,' when the sergeant bellows right alongside his ear. There's a lot of humour and wordplay in this story, which I enjoy some of the dialogue is really sharp and witty, helping to bring even the minor characters to life. As does the way half the men in the base react to Polly sexist, for sure, but sadly realistic. Plus it gives us General Cutler telling his men to get on with their work instead of sitting there like a load of frustrated penguins, which I enjoy. A lot of thought and detail went into the world-building and characterisation in this story.
Taken to the central control room to be kept under observation until the general has time to deal with them, Ben and Polly marvel at the place and joke about getting a lift home until the Doctor warns that they aren't quite where they think they are. They've made it to Earth all right but 20 years ahead of where they left: it is December 1986, according to a calendar on the wall. Heh, and then Ben jokes about computers running everything in the future and how they've probably landed on the moon by now only to be told that yes, of course, there've been moon landings, one just returned. Accurate prediction by the show that moon landings would happen this was filmed and broadcast three years before Neil Armstrong took that giant leap for mankind but there were no manned landings in 1986!
It's all pretty relaxed and friendly, really, despite the unauthorised appearance of the Doctor and his friends. I enjoy the way Ben and Polly are enjoying themselves, sightseeing like a pair of tourists in time until things start to go wrong with the shuttle, which is being drawn off course. Then another planet is spotted coming into orbit, exactly where a planet absolutely should not be.
The Doctor begins to have an inkling of what's going on, the bigger picture, but the general doesn't want to know, being preoccupied with the emergency. The rogue planet, on an oblique orbit and approaching fast, is drawing the shuttle off course Cutler and his team realise they must retrieve it with an emergency splashdown, but the shuttle is struggling, losing power and unable to maintain its course. The Doctor points out a striking resemblance between the rogue planet and Earth and tries to explain, certain that he knows what this means, that 'visitors' will soon be landing, but Cutler is still too busy to listen and goes off to contact International Space Command in Geneva.
Credit where it's due great effort has been made to make International Space Command look and feel genuinely international. And I really like the general sense of bustle around the Snowcap base during all the conversational, expositional scenes the place is always busy, the characters darting back and forth, interrupting each other. It all adds to the sense of unfolding crisis.
Those 'visitors' the Doctor prophesied soon arrive. Fabulous model shot of the spaceship landing, by the way. A couple of men have been sent out from the base to break into the TARDIS and thus become the very first people in Doctor Who history to encounter the Cybermen. They don't last long. Man, but 1966 Cybermen are creepy! We see that they are capable of guile and subterfuge, donning a disguise to trick people into coming close, and something about the fabric costumes really emphasises the body horror of them in a way that the more robotic design of later Cybermen doesn't have. With these early Cybermen, you can really feel that they were once people. So creepy.
Episode Two
I like General Cutler he's a really compelling, complex character, and an excellent antagonist figure to push the story forward. He's gruff and brusque but good at what he does, in the right circumstances, and right now he is absolutely dedicated to getting those astronauts down safely. I like that he finds time in the crisis to offer them reassurances, assurance that he absolutely does not actually feel. It's all he has to offer them just now. He's not ready to listen to the Doctor's warnings about alien visitors, though, and that's his first big mistake because the Cybermen are right on his doorstep.
It really amuses me that the Cybermen put on the snow jackets and masks of the men they just killed I mean, it's macabre as all heck, but a very effective tactic, allowing them to sneak into the base undetected, posing as crew. We don't often see the Cybermen being so sneaky.
Like The War Machines, this serial makes effective use of televised news reports as a means of conveying exposition it really lends a sense of scale and scope to the story, set on Earth as it is, to have this insight into world and governmental reaction to the appearance in the sky of a new planet.
At Snowcap, things are very tense, everyone keenly aware that the astronauts won't last another orbit if they can't be brought down on this pass, they've had it. With everyone so preoccupied, Doctor is desperate to get someone to listen to him about the larger emergency but it is too late. The Cybermen have entered the control room. Polly screams at the sight of them, just to lend a bit of added drama to the moment, and it's a reasonable enough reaction to her first glimpse of a dangerous alien, so sucks to any plot-focused fans who try to criticise her for screaming.
I really like the atmosphere of this story, which is genuinely tense. The Cybermen kill the first man who tries to attack them, just so we know they mean business. Oh, but then they speak for the first time, and I always forget how weird their voices are in these early outings. I like it, though those sing-song voices with their weird intonation, placing emphasis in all the wrong places, really underline the creepiness of the creatures.
Cutler is less concerned about who these invaders are and more concerned about getting the astronauts down he's an extremely single-minded man, and I like that through the course of the story this trait is shown to be both a strength and a weakness, depending on how it is applied. The Cybermen are having none of it. The fate of the astronauts is unimportant to them. Polly has a marvellous exchange, railing at them that they should care, because lives are important it is strong characterisation for her, and also allows the Cybermen to establish their lack of emotion right up front, as it were.
We get some backstory on the Cybermen, who come from the planet Mondas supposedly Earth's twin planet, which drifted away to the end of space millions of years ago and has now returned. It all sounds highly unscientific and implausible to me, and we are offered no explanation of how the planet has been moved across space, why the Cybermen believe bringing it to Earth will save them, or what kind of environmental impact the appearance of this new planet is having on Earth, but we'll just go with it. The woolly science is merely a device to facilitate the story. That backstory is what the Doctor has been trying to tell everyone he already knew what Mondas was, from the moment he saw it on the scanner screen. I find myself wondering how he knows what does he know of Mondas and its past, and how does he know it?
The way these Cybermen talk about their origin, their blank inability to understand the significance of emotions, their dispassionate dismissal of emotion as having any relevance whatsoever it all adds to the creepiness of them, which has only rarely been matched on their subsequent outings. These Cybermen aren't just robots, as they are too often portrayed, they are people turned cyborg, all perceived 'weaknesses' removed, and that really does come across. They aren't cruel for the sake of it they shrug off the fate of the capsule, but allow the base team to continue communicating with it they are just absolutely focused on achieving their goals. These Cybermen are creepy, but interesting.
Left alone for a moment, Ben suggests to the Doctor that they make a break for the TARDIS, certain they could get there safely but the Doctor is having none of it, not about to abandon these people and this situation now. Impulsive Ben even goes so far as to purloin a gun but is promptly apprehended by the Cybermen, who'd barely even noticed the TARDIS crew until that point. The gun is destroyed, again to make a point about the strength of the Cybermen, and Ben is taken away and locked up, rather than simply killed outright. Regular characters have plot armour, of course, but he isn't the first to be spared despite rebelling these Cybermen don't kill for the sake of it.
Despite all efforts, the base crew are unable to get the astronauts back down safely they've lost too much power, used up all their fuel. Dragged fatally off-course by the gravitational pull of Mondas, the shuttle explodes, and this moment is given all the solemnity and gravitas it deserves. The loss of those men is allowed to matter in a way that the loss of the base crew who were killed hasn't seemed to matter, in fact. Recovering those astronauts has been such a concern of the crew for so long, losing them hits hard. But then the Cybermen slyly suggest that everyone focus instead on the danger the entire planet is in, now that this distraction is over! The planet Mondas is almost out of energy so has returned to draw energy from Earth instead, is already draining Earth of power exactly what kind of energy it is sucking up and how is never explained, so it's all pretty woolly. What matters is that Mondas will suck Earth dry. The Cybermen are hilariously unconcerned about this, calmly continuing to interview their prisoners even while said prisoners rant and rage at them. Their plan, they claim, is to remove the population of Earth over to Mondas, so that the people may be saved when Earth is destroyed. This is not a humanitarian gesture: they just want fodder to make more Cybermen, having already converted their own entire population.
Weirdly, Ben is locked up in some kind of projection room, which is far more 1960s than 1980s, but the set designers had no way of predicting the technological changes the next 20 years would bring. He's extremely resourceful, searching the entire room for anything that might help him escape, anything that could be used as a weapon certainly not one to just sit around waiting for rescue. In the absence of anything better, he tries turning the projector toward the door, hoping to dazzle whoever enters next, and then shouts for the guard. It works. The Cybermen who enters is dazzled, and Ben is able to grab his weapon and use it against him but is genuinely upset about having to kill the thing, which had refused to back down when threatened. I like that; it's a nice touch. Killing someone or even something for the first time should be a big deal.
I enjoy the advertising spiel the Cybermen offer by way of explaining why the human race would be better off moving to Mondas and being converted. This is what's so creepy about the Cybermen. They genuinely believe they are better off as they are, and genuinely believe that everyone else would be better off becoming like them. Polly is fantastic in this scene she might have screamed in shock when she first saw the Cybermen, but by heck does she stand up to them, arguing fiercely and furiously in defence of life and emotion and individuality. Not that they are the slightest bit moved they can't be.
Ben sneaks back into the control room with his stolen Cyber-gun and gives it to Cutler, who is better positioned to take out the two remaining Cybermen. That's the first wave of invasion taken care of but it won't be the last. Cutler is quick to resume control, snapping out orders and seeking to regain contact with Geneva, while the Doctor chides that he may have been too hasty, there was more they could have learned from these first invaders. Oh, and look at the way Polly rushes to Ben, the way they stand holding hands they've become so close already. Like Ian and Barbara before them, being swept away into time and space together has created a powerful bond between them.
Geneva have a new problem for Cutler to deal with before the loss of the shuttle, another was sent up to try to help it down, a single-astronaut pod and the volunteer astronaut aboard is Cutler's son. Actor Robert Beatty is doing a fabulous job with Cutler his reaction here is spot on, not a word needed. Cutler's job now is to get his son down in one piece while Geneva worries about being on the brink of interplanetary war!
I like that the story has these sub-plots about the astronauts, that it isn't just about the Cybermen and their invasion it brings the story back down to Earth, makes the point that there is more going on than simply dealing with the invasion, because there are still other priorities that won't wait, it's a juggling act. It really broadens the story, lending a very personal angle to what would otherwise be a generic 'Earth in danger from alien invasion' plot, and generates all kinds of conflict among the characters having to react to multiple stressors.
Cutler whisks into action, readying the base for any further attack. He's a man who really needs to be busy. Polly and Ben aren't impressed by his attitude, though, while the Doctor tiredly observes that the general is underestimating the Cybermen. The episode ends on a note of escalating emergency when the radar picks up hundreds more Cyber spacecraft, flying in formation, heading for Earth!
Episode Three
As the base reacts to the second wave Cyber-invasion, the Doctor creates another minor emergency by abruptly collapsing, for no readily apparent reason. This collapse was written in at the last minute because Hartnell was unavailable for work, the script hastily re-arranged to give the Doctor's lines and actions to other characters mostly Ben. It probably helped that the production team had been aware that something of the kind might happen and were prepared for it the Doctor has played a relatively minor role in this story throughout.
Cutler's anxiety over his son lends a very human dimension to the character, while also pushing him well and truly over the edge, so to speak Robert Beatty does a marvellous job. While Cutler frets over his son, Ben and Polly get the Doctor into the bunkroom and wonder what to do now. There's nothing they can do for the Doctor beyond monitor him, and meanwhile there's this emergency going on here's where having the two companions pays off, as they can be used to represent different priorities, Polly reluctant to leave the Doctor alone in this condition while impatient Ben is anxious to get back to the action.
The way Cutler sees it, there are three problems: getting his son down from orbit, the imminent arrival of more Cybermen, and the ongoing power drain of Earth by planet Mondas. So he proposes a radical solution to resolve all these problems in one stroke: destroying Mondas! He plans to use a 'z-bomb', a doomsday weapon powerful enough to split Mondas apart, certain that the radiation fallout is a risk they will have to take. Geneva won't authorise use of the bomb, however, at least not until they have gone through a full risk-benefit analysis process, so impatient Cutler finds a way around this prohibition, very cleverly asking instead for authority 'to take any action necessary against the Cybermen', which is granted. Cutler promptly and precipitously decides that this order gives him all the authority he needs to use the z-bomb. Ben protests that they do have other options, including just waiting the Doctor has said that Mondas is also in danger, that if it continued to drain power from Earth it would overreach itself and burn up. Actually, the Doctor hasn't said that this is clearly one of the lines intended for the Doctor which has had to be adapted for Ben, simply pretending that the Doctor gave this information off-screen!
Cutler is not prepared to wait, certain in his belief that offensive action is necessary. He's a good, strong leader in ordinary circumstances, but he's in way over his head here, blinded by anxiety for his son and too focused on his chosen course to accept any other options. Neither Ben, Polly nor any of his own staff can persuade him that using the z-bomb on Mondas would also devastate Earth every bit as effectively as the Cybermen attack. So now we have a new source of conflict in the story, a strong one.
Argumentative Ben is hauled away to be locked up in the crew quarters, leaving Polly to try to work on the crew. Lacking any technical skills applicable here, she offers to help by making coffee, which is subversive as all heck, as she is using a typical gendered stereotype against the general, encouraging him to see her as a harmless little woman not even worth locking up he never suspects for a moment that she might use this opening to get close to his crew and sow seeds of rebellion. Which she absolutely does, quietly making coffee, ingratiating herself with the crew, and then subtly goading them into discussing the dangers and alternative options. She quickly manages to win over lead scientist Barclay.
Locked up in the bunkroom with an unconscious Doctor, Ben can't settle. He cases the entire room in search of a way out, is frustrated by his inability to pick the lock, and then spots a handy ventilation shaft, hurrying to prise its cover free. I am amused by the way he talks to himself, narrating his own failures and successes as he goes. I imagine the original draft had Ben and the Doctor locked up together, talking about their predicament a conversation which perforce became Ben's monologue.
While Cutler is otherwise occupied, Polly talks the Barclay into going with her to sneak into the bunkroom and talk to Ben, to see if together they can think of anything to do about the situation. Ben clearly isn't well guarded, as they manage to get in with no trouble. Barclay explains that the ventilation shaft Ben's managed to open leads straight into the rocket silo where the z-bomb is to be launched, which means they stand a chance of sabotaging that launch. Together, the trio make plans, Barclay giving Ben very exact directions for what to do to sabotage the launch.
Ben crawls through cramped ventilation shafts, anxiously consulting the diagram Barclay drew for him until he reaches the rocket silo. Outside, Barclay creates a diversion so that Ben is clear to break in, while Polly hides under the covers of a bunk in the crew quarters so that it will look like Ben is still there when a guard comes checking. All hands to the pump! But the jig is up when Cutler catches Ben red-handed in the act of sabotaging the rocket. Ha, and there's a nifty little stunt there when Cutler pushes Ben over a rail and he goes somersaulting to the ground! Cutler isn't seeing the danger to Earth at all. All he sees is the risk of his son's shuttle being destroyed by Mondas like the last one was. He'll sacrifice just about anything, including the world itself, if it will save his son.
Heh, we don't see much of Cutler's son, really, he's just a face on a screen, but even he is strongly characterised he's very much his father's son: laconic, dedicated to duty, with a sardonic sense of humour.
This is two serials in a row where Ben has been knocked out he's vying with Ian for that crown already. He's all groggy and upset when he wakes up, unable to tell Polly whether or not he succeeded in his sabotage of the rocket characters who get knocked out in Doctor Who aren't usually allowed to be even mildly concussed afterward! The rocket launch begins and the crew gathers anxiously around will the rocket launch, destroying Mondas and perhaps large swathes of the Earth with it? That's the cliffhanger ending for episode three.
Episode Four
Episode four of this story is missing from the archives, but has been animated for the DVD release, which means I still have moving pictures to watch, if not the original film.
The rocket fails to launch Ben's sabotage has worked. Polly exults that now they all have a chance of life, but Cutler is grim, taking this as a strike against his son. Then the Doctor walks in, recovered and somehow completely up to speed on everything that's happened; episode three may have been re-written to account for Hartnell's absence, but apparently episode four wasn't also adjusted to reflect those changes, which causes some slight consistency issues for a few scenes. The Doctor isn't entirely certain what caused his collapse, first blaming 'an outside influence' before speculating that his old body might be wearing a bit thin.
Cutler has lost it completely now, threatening capital punishment for the sabotage of the rocket. Then his son radios in from his shuttle, which is losing power now he's noticed something strange going on with Mondas, which the Doctor gleefully takes as evidence in support of his own theory: that the power Mondas is draining from Earth will be too much and will destroy rather than reinvigorate the planet. Cutler Jr's radio signal is lost just as more Cyber ships begin their descent the base crew are frantic for orders and direction in the face of this new threat, but the only enemy Cutler can see is the Doctor, now blaming him entirely for the possible death of his son. He really has lost it gun in hand, he's on the verge of shooting the Doctor where he stands.
And the Cybermen, with impeccable timing, choose that moment to enter the control room. So Cutler shoots at them instead and is himself shot down on the spot. So that's the end of him he's been excellent throughout, a really strong antagonist. The Cybermen have seen the rocket aimed at Mondas, but don't believe the Doctor's claims to have prevented its launch this is where the writing is a bit wonky, not reflecting the changes made in episode three, so that it comes across as the Doctor claiming credit for something he didn't do. With Cutler gone, no one else in the base seems willing to take command, so the Doctor takes charge, trying to persuade the Cybermen to give up, accept the imminent destruction of their world and come to live on Earth in peace. It isn't a proposal that could ever work, Cybermen being who and what they are, but the Doctor is mainly stalling for time here.
The Cybermen won't talk until the rocket is disarmed and the Doctor whispers to his companions and Barclay that this is perfect, as agreeing to disarm the rocket will buy them the time they need for Mondas to burn itself out. So he accepts the Cybermen's terms. They insist that the warhead must be removed completely and stored below ground before they will talk, and decide to take hostages to ensure cooperation Polly to be one of them. Ben reacts furiously, determined not to let them take Polly, offering himself in her stead, but the Cybermen are having none of it.
So Ben goes off to help disarm the warhead, while Polly is taken to the Cyber spaceship and locked up, removing her from the remainder of the action, which is a shame, as she's been great so far. The Cybermen declare themselves controllers of Earth and begin to make plans for a mass evacuation. They still think that they can stabilise Mondas with the power drained from Earth and convert the entire population to make more Cybermen. The Doctor listens to their plans and suddenly realises that there is a second plan afoot here the Cybermen plan to use the z-bomb to destroy the Earth, believing this will save Mondas! He quickly calls down to the rocket silo to warn the others.
Ben, Barclay and another man called Dyson have a furious debate about the various evils they've had to choose between how do you decide what to do when all the choices are bad? Ben insists that where there's life there's hope. Haha, and when a Cyberman comes to check on them and they hasten to look busy, I love that Ben starts shouting out nautical terms that are completely irrelevant in this setting, just for the sake of sounding like he's hard at work!
Ben has had an idea. Why, he wonders, do the Cybermen need human labour to do this work, if they are so strong and so advanced and could no doubt do it much quicker themselves? They won't even venture into the room. Barclay sees what Ben is getting at the Cybermen are using humans because they don't dare venture near the radioactive materials themselves, even with radiation suits. Which implies that radiation is bad for Cybermen. They test the theory by tricking the guard into opening the door and the radiation affects him immediately. This weakness to radiation is something that the show never really uses again as a weapon against Cybermen.
Point proved, Ben pushes the weakened Cybermen back outside and bars the door, arguing that the important thing now is to defend this room, because as long as they keep the warhead safely in here, the Cybermen can't use it to destroy Earth, and if they stall long enough, Mondas will be destroyed. The only spanner in the works is that the Cybermen still have hostages.
The Cybermen have the Doctor taken out to the spaceship to join Polly and threaten their lives if the men in the rocket silo don't cooperate, adamant that Earth must be destroyed to save Mondas. While Ben and Dyson fret, Barclay points out that there are millions of lives at stake so they must stick to the plan he's right, but Ben isn't satisfied with that, determined to find something more proactive to do to save his friends as well as the world. Ben is fantastic in this story, resourceful and proactive, never giving in. He disconnects all the CCTV cameras so the Cybermen can't spy on them any longer, and begins to plot.
Meanwhile in the spaceship, Polly frets as the Doctor is growing weak and faint once more, rather randomly it's a real shame his weakness wasn't more directly addressed by the story, given that he was always going to leave at the end of it. Apparently, script editor Gerry Davis later stated that it was intended for the energy drain from Mondas to be the cause of the regeneration, but this doesn't come across clearly on screen at all, with the Doctor's weakness coming across as incidental to the plot rather than directly caused by it. It's a pity there isn't more of a direct build-up to the regeneration. This is a case where continuity could have lent so much, as the Doctor's experiences last season with the Time Destructor in The Daleks' Master Plan and the life draining machine in The Savages could be said to also have contributed to his weakness, shortening his life, but no reference is made and no explanation for his condition is offered.
Ben casts around until he finds something both radioactive and portable the nuclear rods powering the base. Perfect, he feels, for use as a weapon against the Cybermen. It's an extremely dangerous thing to be using as a weapon, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Dyson remains useless, feebly protesting that they should cooperate with the Cybermen, but Ben has the measure of the Cybermen, knows that they won't keep their word. Direct action against them is essential.
So Ben takes charge, devising a strategy and making battle plans. His plan is dangerous, but effective using reactor rods, a stolen Cyber gun and a pincer movement to trap and destroy the remaining Cybermen in the base. Job done! But the emergency isn't over yet there are more Cybermen out in the spaceship, who are lured across to the base. They arrive, full of threats, just as Mondas begins to disintegrate and that's the end of the Cybermen, who likewise disintegrate, having been entirely dependent on Mondas and unable to live without it. It's kind of an abrupt ending!
Lieutenant Cutler call in, safe and sound aboard his shuttle, which is back under control there's the tragedy of General Cutler right there; he did what he did out of fear for his son, but none of it was necessary in the end, if only he'd listened to reason. The base staff quickly begin to make plans for bringing Cutler Jr down, and things begin to get back to normal.
Leaving them to it, Ben rushes over to the spaceship, where he finds the Doctor barely conscious and Polly bursts into tears of relief at the sight of him, having been trapped here in the cold and dark without any idea what was going on, expecting the world to end at any moment she's every right to be upset. Moments of weakness and emotion don't mean the character is weak on the contrary, that kind of real, human reaction to a stressful situation lends the kind of depth and credibility that makes a character strong. And I am belabouring this point because companions like Polly tend to get a very negative press among the traditional hardcore Doctor Who fandom, mainly men of a certain age more interested in plot than character, whose vague childhood memories, biased and dulled by time though they were, made up the received wisdom that became accepted as collective memory in the formative pre-VHS, pre-DVD age of the fandom and is often still repeated as 'fact' even today. They dismiss her as a girly girl who screams and cries and makes coffee, somehow completely missing the point that being a girly girl who likes clothes and make-up, screams when frightened and cries when upset is not a bad thing for a character to be and does not preclude her from also being resilient, brave and resourceful, capable of arguing with a Cyberman about why life and emotions are important and of subverting male chauvinism about 'women making coffee' to her own advantage. Polly is so much more than traditional Doctor Who fandom has ever wanted to admit and let's face it, no one rags on Ben for being an emotional man who wears his heart on his sleeve.
The Doctor is in a very bad way and stumbles off to the TARDIS in a daze. Despite being so frail, he moves astonishingly fast, leaving his companions behind and then shuts the door behind him, leaving them out in the cold! He's forgotten all about them in his daze and they have to hammer on the door to be let in.
Inside, the Doctor is busy at the console but then collapses, very suddenly. His companions rush to him just in time to see his face change. Bye-bye, First Doctor hello, Second Doctor! Of all the cliffhanger endings the show has ever had, this has to be the most spectacular. Imagine being a fan in 1966, sitting down to watch this episode. No spoilers, back then, so no one knew Hartnell was leaving. Regeneration had never been heard of. Hartnell was the Doctor, end of story and then suddenly he turns into someone else entirely! What a shock that must have been!
Quotable Quotes
POLLY: Hey Doctor, you've got the most fantastic wardrobe.
DOCTOR: Yes, well I'm glad you approve, my child.
POLLY: These are gorgeous. Where do you shop, Carnaby Street?
CUTLER: Who are you?
BEN: Able seaman Ben Jackson, sir, Royal Navy.
CUTLER: Then why aren't you with your ship?
BEN: That's a bit difficult to explain, sir.
CUTLER: Yeah, I'll bet my sweet life it is.
DOCTOR: I know what this planet is and what it means to Earth.
BEN: And what does it mean to Earth?
DOCTOR: Well, that pretty soon we shall be having visitors.
BEN: Visitors? What, here? Well, who do you think's bringing 'em, Father Christmas on his sledge?
CUTLER: Now just a minute. You turn up out of nowhere, a routine space shot goes wrong, a new planet appears and you tell us you know all about it. That puts you slap bang in the hot seat, right?
CUTLER: That's the most fantastic story I've ever heard.
DOCTOR: I can only repeat, sir, what I have already told you. You will get visitors from that other planet.
BARCLAY: Mondas? But isn't that one of the ancient names of Earth?
KRAIL: Yes. Aeons ago the planets were twins, then we drifted away from you on a journey to the edge of space. Now we have returned.
KRAIL: We are called Cybermen.
BARCLAY: Cybermen?
KRAIL: Yes, Cybermen. We were exactly like you once but our cybernetic scientists realised that our race was getting weak.
BARCLAY: Weak? How?
KRAIL: Our life span was getting shorter, so our scientists and doctors devised spare parts for our bodies until we could be almost completely replaced.
POLLY: But that means you're not like us. You're robots!
KRAIL: Our brains are just like yours except that certain weaknesses have been removed.
BARCLAY: Weaknesses? What weaknesses?
KRAIL: You call them emotions, do you not?
POLLY: But that's terrible. You, you mean you wouldn't care about someone in pain?
KRAIL: There would be no need. We do not feel pain.
POLLY: But we do.
KRAIL: You must come and live with us.
POLLY: But we cannot live with you. You're, you're different. You've got no feelings.
KRAIL: Feelings? I do not understand that word.
DOCTOR: Emotions. Love, pride, hate, fear. Have you no emotions, sir?
KRAIL: Come to Mondas and you will have no need of emotions. You will become like us.
POLLY: Like you?
KRAIL: We have freedom from disease, protection against heat and cold, true mastery. Do you prefer to die in misery?
POLLY: Then you don't mind if we all die.
KRAIL: Why should we mind?
DOCTOR: Why? Why?!
POLLY: Because millions and millions of people are going to suffer and die horribly!
KRAIL: We shall not be affected.
POLLY: Don't you think of anything except yourselves?
KRAIL: We are equipped to survive. We are only interested in survival. Anything else is of no importance. Your deaths will not affect us.
BARCLAY: But that's impossible.
CUTLER: Impossible is not in my vocabulary, Doctor Barclay.
POLLY: What's happened to you, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Oh, I'm not sure, my dear. Comes from an outside influence. Unless this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin.
DOCTOR: What did you say, my boy? It's all over. It's all over. That's what you said. No, but it isn't all over. It's far from being all over.
The Verdict
Well, the science may be more than a little dodgy, but overall and taken as a whole I love this adventure: it's a strong story, tightly plotted, full of interesting characters and conflicts, with excellent characterisation and world-building. A high note for the First Doctor to go out on, sad though I am to see him go.
I particularly enjoy Ben and Polly in this. They've been a great addition to the show, adapting well to being whisked away into time and space. It's noteworthy that they have been shown operating independently of the Doctor in all their adventures so far, while, like Ian and Barbara before them, their primary relationship is with each other rather than with the Doctor. Both gave a strong showing of themselves here, Ben in particular. They are fantastic companions, highly adaptable, resourceful and inventive, never giving up. I'm looking forward now to seeing how they get on with the new Doctor!
Follows on from Season One, Season Two, Season Three and The Smugglers
DOCTOR: This old body of mine is wearing a bit thin.
Overview
So here we are. After 29 adventures told across 134 episodes, the First Doctor's time finally comes to an end, and with it comes the greatest innovation in the history of Doctor Who: the introduction of the concept of regeneration, the ailing Doctor renewing himself by means of a complete physical transformation so that the adventure ends with our first glimpse of Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor. The success of this gambit ensured the longevity of the show and is the foremost reason it is still with us today.
Three out of four episodes of this adventure still exist to be viewed as originally intended but of course it would be the fourth episode that is missing, the one with the regeneration. A clip containing the crucial last minutes of the episode, the regeneration scene, has managed to survive, however, and is available to be viewed, while the missing fourth episode is one of only a handful that have been animated for a DVD release, the animation matched to the original soundtrack.
With Hartnell's ailing Doctor sidelined for a chunk of the adventure, new companions Ben and Polly are called on to carry large portions of this story, which they manage well this is their third adventure, but their first encounter with aliens, as The Tenth Planet sees the introduction of the show's second-most iconic monsters: the Cybermen. This is also the first real 'base under siege' story of the show, a format that would become a particular staple of the Troughton era.
Another point worth noting, for interest and amusement: the televised story The Tenth Planet is set in the year 1986. The novelisation of the story, written around 20 years later at about the time it should have been taking place, sets it instead in the year 2000 but then the novelisation of the following story, Power of the Daleks, refers back to this one but sets it in 1996!
The plot, in a nutshell, is this: the Doctor, Ben and Polly arrive at a remote base in the South Pole in the near future, just in time to face an invasion of Cybermen, who plan to suck the Earth dry and convert its population. With the Doctor taken ill and fading fast, can his inexperienced companions save the day?
Writer Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis
Director Derek Martinus
Script editor Gerry Davies
Producer Innes Lloyd
Observations
Random thoughts while watching:
Episode One
The story opens with a shot of a rocket being launched something we would never have seen just two or three years earlier, at the start of the show. And, like The War Machines two serials ago, there are customised titles for this adventure, designed to look like a computer printout. This is the fourth season of the show and the limits of what is technically possible are already being pushed forward, new creative ideas being explored.
The action begins at International Space Command's Snowcap Base in the South Pole, where a General Cutler and his team are supervising the mission of the Zeus IV space shuttle, running a routine probe on the Earth's atmosphere. I like that we get this time setting the scene, seeing how the base operates, the relaxed yet professional dynamic among its staff. I also appreciate the variety of accents among the staff and astronauts an early attempt at a multi-cultural vision of the future, including a black astronaut.
Spoiler alert: the black astronaut dies in episode two. Some would argue that this is an example of ingrained racism, 'the black man always dies' trope, but I don't think so in this case. The role isn't written as black, it's written as an astronaut, one of two, both of whom die, along with quite a number of other people, because it's that kind of story. It would have been very easy to simply cast another white man for the part and have done with it, so instead of complaining that the black astronaut dies, when the loss of both astronauts is an integral part of the plot regardless of who plays them, I'd rather be glad that the show chose to cast a black man in that role, portrayed as educated and successful, articulate and professional. That kind of representation matters, putting a black man in space in 1966, saying 'this is where we expect to be in just two decades from now'. It's just a shame there aren't any women this is the second adventure in a row with no women at all beyond the Doctor's companion.
The TARDIS lands at the South Pole, right alongside the Snowcap base I love the model shots and set dressing for this. Inside, the Doctor has introduced Polly and Ben to his wardrobe in search of cold weather gear. I enjoy Polly's enthusiasm for the wardrobe she's a girly girl and unashamed of it, and it is her nature to be upbeat and positive. She's adjusted well to being swept away from all she knew, accepting what can't be changed and making the best of it, enjoying the experience. Ben plays along, the pair of them joking and teasing, until the Doctor chides them about not being serious enough when they don't know where they are spoilsport!
So they go outside to explore and are instantly spotted on the periscope by the base crew, who, being an all-male crowd, are delighted to see a woman but alarmed that anyone is there at all. Our intrepid heroes are apprehended at once and taken into the base.
Ha, I love snarky Doctor, grouching 'why don't you speak up, I'm deaf,' when the sergeant bellows right alongside his ear. There's a lot of humour and wordplay in this story, which I enjoy some of the dialogue is really sharp and witty, helping to bring even the minor characters to life. As does the way half the men in the base react to Polly sexist, for sure, but sadly realistic. Plus it gives us General Cutler telling his men to get on with their work instead of sitting there like a load of frustrated penguins, which I enjoy. A lot of thought and detail went into the world-building and characterisation in this story.
Taken to the central control room to be kept under observation until the general has time to deal with them, Ben and Polly marvel at the place and joke about getting a lift home until the Doctor warns that they aren't quite where they think they are. They've made it to Earth all right but 20 years ahead of where they left: it is December 1986, according to a calendar on the wall. Heh, and then Ben jokes about computers running everything in the future and how they've probably landed on the moon by now only to be told that yes, of course, there've been moon landings, one just returned. Accurate prediction by the show that moon landings would happen this was filmed and broadcast three years before Neil Armstrong took that giant leap for mankind but there were no manned landings in 1986!
It's all pretty relaxed and friendly, really, despite the unauthorised appearance of the Doctor and his friends. I enjoy the way Ben and Polly are enjoying themselves, sightseeing like a pair of tourists in time until things start to go wrong with the shuttle, which is being drawn off course. Then another planet is spotted coming into orbit, exactly where a planet absolutely should not be.
The Doctor begins to have an inkling of what's going on, the bigger picture, but the general doesn't want to know, being preoccupied with the emergency. The rogue planet, on an oblique orbit and approaching fast, is drawing the shuttle off course Cutler and his team realise they must retrieve it with an emergency splashdown, but the shuttle is struggling, losing power and unable to maintain its course. The Doctor points out a striking resemblance between the rogue planet and Earth and tries to explain, certain that he knows what this means, that 'visitors' will soon be landing, but Cutler is still too busy to listen and goes off to contact International Space Command in Geneva.
Credit where it's due great effort has been made to make International Space Command look and feel genuinely international. And I really like the general sense of bustle around the Snowcap base during all the conversational, expositional scenes the place is always busy, the characters darting back and forth, interrupting each other. It all adds to the sense of unfolding crisis.
Those 'visitors' the Doctor prophesied soon arrive. Fabulous model shot of the spaceship landing, by the way. A couple of men have been sent out from the base to break into the TARDIS and thus become the very first people in Doctor Who history to encounter the Cybermen. They don't last long. Man, but 1966 Cybermen are creepy! We see that they are capable of guile and subterfuge, donning a disguise to trick people into coming close, and something about the fabric costumes really emphasises the body horror of them in a way that the more robotic design of later Cybermen doesn't have. With these early Cybermen, you can really feel that they were once people. So creepy.
Episode Two
I like General Cutler he's a really compelling, complex character, and an excellent antagonist figure to push the story forward. He's gruff and brusque but good at what he does, in the right circumstances, and right now he is absolutely dedicated to getting those astronauts down safely. I like that he finds time in the crisis to offer them reassurances, assurance that he absolutely does not actually feel. It's all he has to offer them just now. He's not ready to listen to the Doctor's warnings about alien visitors, though, and that's his first big mistake because the Cybermen are right on his doorstep.
It really amuses me that the Cybermen put on the snow jackets and masks of the men they just killed I mean, it's macabre as all heck, but a very effective tactic, allowing them to sneak into the base undetected, posing as crew. We don't often see the Cybermen being so sneaky.
Like The War Machines, this serial makes effective use of televised news reports as a means of conveying exposition it really lends a sense of scale and scope to the story, set on Earth as it is, to have this insight into world and governmental reaction to the appearance in the sky of a new planet.
At Snowcap, things are very tense, everyone keenly aware that the astronauts won't last another orbit if they can't be brought down on this pass, they've had it. With everyone so preoccupied, Doctor is desperate to get someone to listen to him about the larger emergency but it is too late. The Cybermen have entered the control room. Polly screams at the sight of them, just to lend a bit of added drama to the moment, and it's a reasonable enough reaction to her first glimpse of a dangerous alien, so sucks to any plot-focused fans who try to criticise her for screaming.
I really like the atmosphere of this story, which is genuinely tense. The Cybermen kill the first man who tries to attack them, just so we know they mean business. Oh, but then they speak for the first time, and I always forget how weird their voices are in these early outings. I like it, though those sing-song voices with their weird intonation, placing emphasis in all the wrong places, really underline the creepiness of the creatures.
Cutler is less concerned about who these invaders are and more concerned about getting the astronauts down he's an extremely single-minded man, and I like that through the course of the story this trait is shown to be both a strength and a weakness, depending on how it is applied. The Cybermen are having none of it. The fate of the astronauts is unimportant to them. Polly has a marvellous exchange, railing at them that they should care, because lives are important it is strong characterisation for her, and also allows the Cybermen to establish their lack of emotion right up front, as it were.
We get some backstory on the Cybermen, who come from the planet Mondas supposedly Earth's twin planet, which drifted away to the end of space millions of years ago and has now returned. It all sounds highly unscientific and implausible to me, and we are offered no explanation of how the planet has been moved across space, why the Cybermen believe bringing it to Earth will save them, or what kind of environmental impact the appearance of this new planet is having on Earth, but we'll just go with it. The woolly science is merely a device to facilitate the story. That backstory is what the Doctor has been trying to tell everyone he already knew what Mondas was, from the moment he saw it on the scanner screen. I find myself wondering how he knows what does he know of Mondas and its past, and how does he know it?
The way these Cybermen talk about their origin, their blank inability to understand the significance of emotions, their dispassionate dismissal of emotion as having any relevance whatsoever it all adds to the creepiness of them, which has only rarely been matched on their subsequent outings. These Cybermen aren't just robots, as they are too often portrayed, they are people turned cyborg, all perceived 'weaknesses' removed, and that really does come across. They aren't cruel for the sake of it they shrug off the fate of the capsule, but allow the base team to continue communicating with it they are just absolutely focused on achieving their goals. These Cybermen are creepy, but interesting.
Left alone for a moment, Ben suggests to the Doctor that they make a break for the TARDIS, certain they could get there safely but the Doctor is having none of it, not about to abandon these people and this situation now. Impulsive Ben even goes so far as to purloin a gun but is promptly apprehended by the Cybermen, who'd barely even noticed the TARDIS crew until that point. The gun is destroyed, again to make a point about the strength of the Cybermen, and Ben is taken away and locked up, rather than simply killed outright. Regular characters have plot armour, of course, but he isn't the first to be spared despite rebelling these Cybermen don't kill for the sake of it.
Despite all efforts, the base crew are unable to get the astronauts back down safely they've lost too much power, used up all their fuel. Dragged fatally off-course by the gravitational pull of Mondas, the shuttle explodes, and this moment is given all the solemnity and gravitas it deserves. The loss of those men is allowed to matter in a way that the loss of the base crew who were killed hasn't seemed to matter, in fact. Recovering those astronauts has been such a concern of the crew for so long, losing them hits hard. But then the Cybermen slyly suggest that everyone focus instead on the danger the entire planet is in, now that this distraction is over! The planet Mondas is almost out of energy so has returned to draw energy from Earth instead, is already draining Earth of power exactly what kind of energy it is sucking up and how is never explained, so it's all pretty woolly. What matters is that Mondas will suck Earth dry. The Cybermen are hilariously unconcerned about this, calmly continuing to interview their prisoners even while said prisoners rant and rage at them. Their plan, they claim, is to remove the population of Earth over to Mondas, so that the people may be saved when Earth is destroyed. This is not a humanitarian gesture: they just want fodder to make more Cybermen, having already converted their own entire population.
Weirdly, Ben is locked up in some kind of projection room, which is far more 1960s than 1980s, but the set designers had no way of predicting the technological changes the next 20 years would bring. He's extremely resourceful, searching the entire room for anything that might help him escape, anything that could be used as a weapon certainly not one to just sit around waiting for rescue. In the absence of anything better, he tries turning the projector toward the door, hoping to dazzle whoever enters next, and then shouts for the guard. It works. The Cybermen who enters is dazzled, and Ben is able to grab his weapon and use it against him but is genuinely upset about having to kill the thing, which had refused to back down when threatened. I like that; it's a nice touch. Killing someone or even something for the first time should be a big deal.
I enjoy the advertising spiel the Cybermen offer by way of explaining why the human race would be better off moving to Mondas and being converted. This is what's so creepy about the Cybermen. They genuinely believe they are better off as they are, and genuinely believe that everyone else would be better off becoming like them. Polly is fantastic in this scene she might have screamed in shock when she first saw the Cybermen, but by heck does she stand up to them, arguing fiercely and furiously in defence of life and emotion and individuality. Not that they are the slightest bit moved they can't be.
Ben sneaks back into the control room with his stolen Cyber-gun and gives it to Cutler, who is better positioned to take out the two remaining Cybermen. That's the first wave of invasion taken care of but it won't be the last. Cutler is quick to resume control, snapping out orders and seeking to regain contact with Geneva, while the Doctor chides that he may have been too hasty, there was more they could have learned from these first invaders. Oh, and look at the way Polly rushes to Ben, the way they stand holding hands they've become so close already. Like Ian and Barbara before them, being swept away into time and space together has created a powerful bond between them.
Geneva have a new problem for Cutler to deal with before the loss of the shuttle, another was sent up to try to help it down, a single-astronaut pod and the volunteer astronaut aboard is Cutler's son. Actor Robert Beatty is doing a fabulous job with Cutler his reaction here is spot on, not a word needed. Cutler's job now is to get his son down in one piece while Geneva worries about being on the brink of interplanetary war!
I like that the story has these sub-plots about the astronauts, that it isn't just about the Cybermen and their invasion it brings the story back down to Earth, makes the point that there is more going on than simply dealing with the invasion, because there are still other priorities that won't wait, it's a juggling act. It really broadens the story, lending a very personal angle to what would otherwise be a generic 'Earth in danger from alien invasion' plot, and generates all kinds of conflict among the characters having to react to multiple stressors.
Cutler whisks into action, readying the base for any further attack. He's a man who really needs to be busy. Polly and Ben aren't impressed by his attitude, though, while the Doctor tiredly observes that the general is underestimating the Cybermen. The episode ends on a note of escalating emergency when the radar picks up hundreds more Cyber spacecraft, flying in formation, heading for Earth!
Episode Three
As the base reacts to the second wave Cyber-invasion, the Doctor creates another minor emergency by abruptly collapsing, for no readily apparent reason. This collapse was written in at the last minute because Hartnell was unavailable for work, the script hastily re-arranged to give the Doctor's lines and actions to other characters mostly Ben. It probably helped that the production team had been aware that something of the kind might happen and were prepared for it the Doctor has played a relatively minor role in this story throughout.
Cutler's anxiety over his son lends a very human dimension to the character, while also pushing him well and truly over the edge, so to speak Robert Beatty does a marvellous job. While Cutler frets over his son, Ben and Polly get the Doctor into the bunkroom and wonder what to do now. There's nothing they can do for the Doctor beyond monitor him, and meanwhile there's this emergency going on here's where having the two companions pays off, as they can be used to represent different priorities, Polly reluctant to leave the Doctor alone in this condition while impatient Ben is anxious to get back to the action.
The way Cutler sees it, there are three problems: getting his son down from orbit, the imminent arrival of more Cybermen, and the ongoing power drain of Earth by planet Mondas. So he proposes a radical solution to resolve all these problems in one stroke: destroying Mondas! He plans to use a 'z-bomb', a doomsday weapon powerful enough to split Mondas apart, certain that the radiation fallout is a risk they will have to take. Geneva won't authorise use of the bomb, however, at least not until they have gone through a full risk-benefit analysis process, so impatient Cutler finds a way around this prohibition, very cleverly asking instead for authority 'to take any action necessary against the Cybermen', which is granted. Cutler promptly and precipitously decides that this order gives him all the authority he needs to use the z-bomb. Ben protests that they do have other options, including just waiting the Doctor has said that Mondas is also in danger, that if it continued to drain power from Earth it would overreach itself and burn up. Actually, the Doctor hasn't said that this is clearly one of the lines intended for the Doctor which has had to be adapted for Ben, simply pretending that the Doctor gave this information off-screen!
Cutler is not prepared to wait, certain in his belief that offensive action is necessary. He's a good, strong leader in ordinary circumstances, but he's in way over his head here, blinded by anxiety for his son and too focused on his chosen course to accept any other options. Neither Ben, Polly nor any of his own staff can persuade him that using the z-bomb on Mondas would also devastate Earth every bit as effectively as the Cybermen attack. So now we have a new source of conflict in the story, a strong one.
Argumentative Ben is hauled away to be locked up in the crew quarters, leaving Polly to try to work on the crew. Lacking any technical skills applicable here, she offers to help by making coffee, which is subversive as all heck, as she is using a typical gendered stereotype against the general, encouraging him to see her as a harmless little woman not even worth locking up he never suspects for a moment that she might use this opening to get close to his crew and sow seeds of rebellion. Which she absolutely does, quietly making coffee, ingratiating herself with the crew, and then subtly goading them into discussing the dangers and alternative options. She quickly manages to win over lead scientist Barclay.
Locked up in the bunkroom with an unconscious Doctor, Ben can't settle. He cases the entire room in search of a way out, is frustrated by his inability to pick the lock, and then spots a handy ventilation shaft, hurrying to prise its cover free. I am amused by the way he talks to himself, narrating his own failures and successes as he goes. I imagine the original draft had Ben and the Doctor locked up together, talking about their predicament a conversation which perforce became Ben's monologue.
While Cutler is otherwise occupied, Polly talks the Barclay into going with her to sneak into the bunkroom and talk to Ben, to see if together they can think of anything to do about the situation. Ben clearly isn't well guarded, as they manage to get in with no trouble. Barclay explains that the ventilation shaft Ben's managed to open leads straight into the rocket silo where the z-bomb is to be launched, which means they stand a chance of sabotaging that launch. Together, the trio make plans, Barclay giving Ben very exact directions for what to do to sabotage the launch.
Ben crawls through cramped ventilation shafts, anxiously consulting the diagram Barclay drew for him until he reaches the rocket silo. Outside, Barclay creates a diversion so that Ben is clear to break in, while Polly hides under the covers of a bunk in the crew quarters so that it will look like Ben is still there when a guard comes checking. All hands to the pump! But the jig is up when Cutler catches Ben red-handed in the act of sabotaging the rocket. Ha, and there's a nifty little stunt there when Cutler pushes Ben over a rail and he goes somersaulting to the ground! Cutler isn't seeing the danger to Earth at all. All he sees is the risk of his son's shuttle being destroyed by Mondas like the last one was. He'll sacrifice just about anything, including the world itself, if it will save his son.
Heh, we don't see much of Cutler's son, really, he's just a face on a screen, but even he is strongly characterised he's very much his father's son: laconic, dedicated to duty, with a sardonic sense of humour.
This is two serials in a row where Ben has been knocked out he's vying with Ian for that crown already. He's all groggy and upset when he wakes up, unable to tell Polly whether or not he succeeded in his sabotage of the rocket characters who get knocked out in Doctor Who aren't usually allowed to be even mildly concussed afterward! The rocket launch begins and the crew gathers anxiously around will the rocket launch, destroying Mondas and perhaps large swathes of the Earth with it? That's the cliffhanger ending for episode three.
Episode Four
Episode four of this story is missing from the archives, but has been animated for the DVD release, which means I still have moving pictures to watch, if not the original film.
The rocket fails to launch Ben's sabotage has worked. Polly exults that now they all have a chance of life, but Cutler is grim, taking this as a strike against his son. Then the Doctor walks in, recovered and somehow completely up to speed on everything that's happened; episode three may have been re-written to account for Hartnell's absence, but apparently episode four wasn't also adjusted to reflect those changes, which causes some slight consistency issues for a few scenes. The Doctor isn't entirely certain what caused his collapse, first blaming 'an outside influence' before speculating that his old body might be wearing a bit thin.
Cutler has lost it completely now, threatening capital punishment for the sabotage of the rocket. Then his son radios in from his shuttle, which is losing power now he's noticed something strange going on with Mondas, which the Doctor gleefully takes as evidence in support of his own theory: that the power Mondas is draining from Earth will be too much and will destroy rather than reinvigorate the planet. Cutler Jr's radio signal is lost just as more Cyber ships begin their descent the base crew are frantic for orders and direction in the face of this new threat, but the only enemy Cutler can see is the Doctor, now blaming him entirely for the possible death of his son. He really has lost it gun in hand, he's on the verge of shooting the Doctor where he stands.
And the Cybermen, with impeccable timing, choose that moment to enter the control room. So Cutler shoots at them instead and is himself shot down on the spot. So that's the end of him he's been excellent throughout, a really strong antagonist. The Cybermen have seen the rocket aimed at Mondas, but don't believe the Doctor's claims to have prevented its launch this is where the writing is a bit wonky, not reflecting the changes made in episode three, so that it comes across as the Doctor claiming credit for something he didn't do. With Cutler gone, no one else in the base seems willing to take command, so the Doctor takes charge, trying to persuade the Cybermen to give up, accept the imminent destruction of their world and come to live on Earth in peace. It isn't a proposal that could ever work, Cybermen being who and what they are, but the Doctor is mainly stalling for time here.
The Cybermen won't talk until the rocket is disarmed and the Doctor whispers to his companions and Barclay that this is perfect, as agreeing to disarm the rocket will buy them the time they need for Mondas to burn itself out. So he accepts the Cybermen's terms. They insist that the warhead must be removed completely and stored below ground before they will talk, and decide to take hostages to ensure cooperation Polly to be one of them. Ben reacts furiously, determined not to let them take Polly, offering himself in her stead, but the Cybermen are having none of it.
So Ben goes off to help disarm the warhead, while Polly is taken to the Cyber spaceship and locked up, removing her from the remainder of the action, which is a shame, as she's been great so far. The Cybermen declare themselves controllers of Earth and begin to make plans for a mass evacuation. They still think that they can stabilise Mondas with the power drained from Earth and convert the entire population to make more Cybermen. The Doctor listens to their plans and suddenly realises that there is a second plan afoot here the Cybermen plan to use the z-bomb to destroy the Earth, believing this will save Mondas! He quickly calls down to the rocket silo to warn the others.
Ben, Barclay and another man called Dyson have a furious debate about the various evils they've had to choose between how do you decide what to do when all the choices are bad? Ben insists that where there's life there's hope. Haha, and when a Cyberman comes to check on them and they hasten to look busy, I love that Ben starts shouting out nautical terms that are completely irrelevant in this setting, just for the sake of sounding like he's hard at work!
Ben has had an idea. Why, he wonders, do the Cybermen need human labour to do this work, if they are so strong and so advanced and could no doubt do it much quicker themselves? They won't even venture into the room. Barclay sees what Ben is getting at the Cybermen are using humans because they don't dare venture near the radioactive materials themselves, even with radiation suits. Which implies that radiation is bad for Cybermen. They test the theory by tricking the guard into opening the door and the radiation affects him immediately. This weakness to radiation is something that the show never really uses again as a weapon against Cybermen.
Point proved, Ben pushes the weakened Cybermen back outside and bars the door, arguing that the important thing now is to defend this room, because as long as they keep the warhead safely in here, the Cybermen can't use it to destroy Earth, and if they stall long enough, Mondas will be destroyed. The only spanner in the works is that the Cybermen still have hostages.
The Cybermen have the Doctor taken out to the spaceship to join Polly and threaten their lives if the men in the rocket silo don't cooperate, adamant that Earth must be destroyed to save Mondas. While Ben and Dyson fret, Barclay points out that there are millions of lives at stake so they must stick to the plan he's right, but Ben isn't satisfied with that, determined to find something more proactive to do to save his friends as well as the world. Ben is fantastic in this story, resourceful and proactive, never giving in. He disconnects all the CCTV cameras so the Cybermen can't spy on them any longer, and begins to plot.
Meanwhile in the spaceship, Polly frets as the Doctor is growing weak and faint once more, rather randomly it's a real shame his weakness wasn't more directly addressed by the story, given that he was always going to leave at the end of it. Apparently, script editor Gerry Davis later stated that it was intended for the energy drain from Mondas to be the cause of the regeneration, but this doesn't come across clearly on screen at all, with the Doctor's weakness coming across as incidental to the plot rather than directly caused by it. It's a pity there isn't more of a direct build-up to the regeneration. This is a case where continuity could have lent so much, as the Doctor's experiences last season with the Time Destructor in The Daleks' Master Plan and the life draining machine in The Savages could be said to also have contributed to his weakness, shortening his life, but no reference is made and no explanation for his condition is offered.
Ben casts around until he finds something both radioactive and portable the nuclear rods powering the base. Perfect, he feels, for use as a weapon against the Cybermen. It's an extremely dangerous thing to be using as a weapon, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Dyson remains useless, feebly protesting that they should cooperate with the Cybermen, but Ben has the measure of the Cybermen, knows that they won't keep their word. Direct action against them is essential.
So Ben takes charge, devising a strategy and making battle plans. His plan is dangerous, but effective using reactor rods, a stolen Cyber gun and a pincer movement to trap and destroy the remaining Cybermen in the base. Job done! But the emergency isn't over yet there are more Cybermen out in the spaceship, who are lured across to the base. They arrive, full of threats, just as Mondas begins to disintegrate and that's the end of the Cybermen, who likewise disintegrate, having been entirely dependent on Mondas and unable to live without it. It's kind of an abrupt ending!
Lieutenant Cutler call in, safe and sound aboard his shuttle, which is back under control there's the tragedy of General Cutler right there; he did what he did out of fear for his son, but none of it was necessary in the end, if only he'd listened to reason. The base staff quickly begin to make plans for bringing Cutler Jr down, and things begin to get back to normal.
Leaving them to it, Ben rushes over to the spaceship, where he finds the Doctor barely conscious and Polly bursts into tears of relief at the sight of him, having been trapped here in the cold and dark without any idea what was going on, expecting the world to end at any moment she's every right to be upset. Moments of weakness and emotion don't mean the character is weak on the contrary, that kind of real, human reaction to a stressful situation lends the kind of depth and credibility that makes a character strong. And I am belabouring this point because companions like Polly tend to get a very negative press among the traditional hardcore Doctor Who fandom, mainly men of a certain age more interested in plot than character, whose vague childhood memories, biased and dulled by time though they were, made up the received wisdom that became accepted as collective memory in the formative pre-VHS, pre-DVD age of the fandom and is often still repeated as 'fact' even today. They dismiss her as a girly girl who screams and cries and makes coffee, somehow completely missing the point that being a girly girl who likes clothes and make-up, screams when frightened and cries when upset is not a bad thing for a character to be and does not preclude her from also being resilient, brave and resourceful, capable of arguing with a Cyberman about why life and emotions are important and of subverting male chauvinism about 'women making coffee' to her own advantage. Polly is so much more than traditional Doctor Who fandom has ever wanted to admit and let's face it, no one rags on Ben for being an emotional man who wears his heart on his sleeve.
The Doctor is in a very bad way and stumbles off to the TARDIS in a daze. Despite being so frail, he moves astonishingly fast, leaving his companions behind and then shuts the door behind him, leaving them out in the cold! He's forgotten all about them in his daze and they have to hammer on the door to be let in.
Inside, the Doctor is busy at the console but then collapses, very suddenly. His companions rush to him just in time to see his face change. Bye-bye, First Doctor hello, Second Doctor! Of all the cliffhanger endings the show has ever had, this has to be the most spectacular. Imagine being a fan in 1966, sitting down to watch this episode. No spoilers, back then, so no one knew Hartnell was leaving. Regeneration had never been heard of. Hartnell was the Doctor, end of story and then suddenly he turns into someone else entirely! What a shock that must have been!
Quotable Quotes
POLLY: Hey Doctor, you've got the most fantastic wardrobe.
DOCTOR: Yes, well I'm glad you approve, my child.
POLLY: These are gorgeous. Where do you shop, Carnaby Street?
CUTLER: Who are you?
BEN: Able seaman Ben Jackson, sir, Royal Navy.
CUTLER: Then why aren't you with your ship?
BEN: That's a bit difficult to explain, sir.
CUTLER: Yeah, I'll bet my sweet life it is.
DOCTOR: I know what this planet is and what it means to Earth.
BEN: And what does it mean to Earth?
DOCTOR: Well, that pretty soon we shall be having visitors.
BEN: Visitors? What, here? Well, who do you think's bringing 'em, Father Christmas on his sledge?
CUTLER: Now just a minute. You turn up out of nowhere, a routine space shot goes wrong, a new planet appears and you tell us you know all about it. That puts you slap bang in the hot seat, right?
CUTLER: That's the most fantastic story I've ever heard.
DOCTOR: I can only repeat, sir, what I have already told you. You will get visitors from that other planet.
BARCLAY: Mondas? But isn't that one of the ancient names of Earth?
KRAIL: Yes. Aeons ago the planets were twins, then we drifted away from you on a journey to the edge of space. Now we have returned.
KRAIL: We are called Cybermen.
BARCLAY: Cybermen?
KRAIL: Yes, Cybermen. We were exactly like you once but our cybernetic scientists realised that our race was getting weak.
BARCLAY: Weak? How?
KRAIL: Our life span was getting shorter, so our scientists and doctors devised spare parts for our bodies until we could be almost completely replaced.
POLLY: But that means you're not like us. You're robots!
KRAIL: Our brains are just like yours except that certain weaknesses have been removed.
BARCLAY: Weaknesses? What weaknesses?
KRAIL: You call them emotions, do you not?
POLLY: But that's terrible. You, you mean you wouldn't care about someone in pain?
KRAIL: There would be no need. We do not feel pain.
POLLY: But we do.
KRAIL: You must come and live with us.
POLLY: But we cannot live with you. You're, you're different. You've got no feelings.
KRAIL: Feelings? I do not understand that word.
DOCTOR: Emotions. Love, pride, hate, fear. Have you no emotions, sir?
KRAIL: Come to Mondas and you will have no need of emotions. You will become like us.
POLLY: Like you?
KRAIL: We have freedom from disease, protection against heat and cold, true mastery. Do you prefer to die in misery?
POLLY: Then you don't mind if we all die.
KRAIL: Why should we mind?
DOCTOR: Why? Why?!
POLLY: Because millions and millions of people are going to suffer and die horribly!
KRAIL: We shall not be affected.
POLLY: Don't you think of anything except yourselves?
KRAIL: We are equipped to survive. We are only interested in survival. Anything else is of no importance. Your deaths will not affect us.
BARCLAY: But that's impossible.
CUTLER: Impossible is not in my vocabulary, Doctor Barclay.
POLLY: What's happened to you, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Oh, I'm not sure, my dear. Comes from an outside influence. Unless this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin.
DOCTOR: What did you say, my boy? It's all over. It's all over. That's what you said. No, but it isn't all over. It's far from being all over.
The Verdict
Well, the science may be more than a little dodgy, but overall and taken as a whole I love this adventure: it's a strong story, tightly plotted, full of interesting characters and conflicts, with excellent characterisation and world-building. A high note for the First Doctor to go out on, sad though I am to see him go.
I particularly enjoy Ben and Polly in this. They've been a great addition to the show, adapting well to being whisked away into time and space. It's noteworthy that they have been shown operating independently of the Doctor in all their adventures so far, while, like Ian and Barbara before them, their primary relationship is with each other rather than with the Doctor. Both gave a strong showing of themselves here, Ben in particular. They are fantastic companions, highly adaptable, resourceful and inventive, never giving up. I'm looking forward now to seeing how they get on with the new Doctor!