Who do you love? 13: The Web Planet (or: Fuck you, we can do anything)
Six things to love again!
1) Barbara and Vicki in the TARDIS at the start talking about going to Space School. Compare this to the wearisome TARDIS crew banter in The Sensorites or The Reign of Terror, which doesn't advance the drama, doesn't reveal character, and isn't entertaining in itself. Maybe it's Maureen O'Brien's charisma (and she is very good), maybe it's losing Susan and relieving the problems the writers had writing for her, maybe it's Dennis Spooner taking over from David Whitaker as script editor (although as Dennis Spooner was responsible for those terrible TARDIS scenes in The Reign of Terror, it's hard to see him getting so much better in just six months), maybe it's just that Bill Strutton was a good writer. Anyway, this scene pops.
2) Fuck you, we can do anything. And to prove it, we're going to do The Lord of the Rings, on a BBC budget, in a tiny studio.
3) Those oxygen helmets the Doctor and Ian wear, and then decide they don't need. Although that entire sequence would be cut out of a tauter script, I love it. It's like watching a slightly fussy friend who you love make sure he has everything he needs before you leave the house.
4) Monsters in the TARDIS! For the first time! And then the TARDIS is stolen! For the first time!
5) Two great acting moments from Hartnell - when he realises the Ship has been taken, and at the end of Episode 2 when he lets the communication tube descend over his head. Richard Martin takes a lot of flak on the internets, but look at the performances he gets from Hartnell in both this and Dalek Invasion of Earth. And Verity Lambert clearly trusted him to deliver the goods on the big-budget spectaculars. If you're disagreeing with Verity, the odds have to be that you're missing something, not that she was.
6) A craggy, irregular alien planet, where nothing is at right angles… except the ground, which is a perfectly flat studio floor.
7) ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE. Seriously, haters, you are so missing out. There's a ferment of ideas at every level, script through cinematography through performances. Not all of it's perfectly executed, but everyone, behind and in front of the camera, is giving 110%. I'd like to see any other show do anything like this.