The Edge of Destruction: Personal Thoughts and Observations
THE CONTINUING STORY
DOCTOR: Well now, we can all start again, eh? Yes, we can. Yes.
The very first season of Doctor Who is presented as one long continuous story. The title of each individual episode is shown on-screen rather than the overall serial title. The end of each serial leads into the beginning of the next. It also feels like one continuous story, perhaps more than any other season of the 1963 - 1989 run.
This two-parter is entirely necessary to that continuing story. Things could not go on with the Doctor at odds with Ian and Barbara. A situation made most difficult for Susan whose loyalties to her grandfather and her school teachers are tested. The events of the previous two serials had not been an adventure for anyone. The four main characters were artificially forced together to survive against the Tribe of Gum and the Daleks. There is no tangible villain or antagonist in this serial. Instead the four main characters have to confront themselves and each other.
DOCTOR: Yes, you haven't forgiven me, have you.
BARBARA: You said terrible things to us.
DOCTOR: Yes, I suppose it's the injustice that's upsetting you, and when I made a threat to put you off the ship it must have affected you very deeply.
BARBARA: What do you care what I think or feel?
DOCTOR: As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves.
The end of this serial does feel like the beginning of an adventure. The Doctor is helping Barbara with her coat and giving her his arm, Ian is laughing, Susan is throwing snowballs, and all of the wrongs are, if not forgotten, at least forgiven.
THE TARDIS
IAN: A machine that can think for itself?
BARBARA: Yes.
IAN: Is that feasible, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Oh, think not as you or I do, but it must be able to think as a machine. You see, it has a bank of computers.
There is some ambiguity about the sentience of the TARDIS and I like it.
As this serial is set entirely within the TARDIS, it is the most time that the interior is seen on-screen during the William Hartnell run. It is a perfect mix of the alien and the familiar. The inclusion of the items from different periods of history (picked up on their travels) make it easy for me to believe that the TARDIS has been the Doctor and Susan's home for at least the last few years.
Four or five journeys back the Doctor and Susan almost lost the TARDIS on Quinnis of “the fourth universe”. Presumably the TARDIS is capable of travelling to parallel or alternate universes. This seems to fit with the original conception of Doctor Who as a show that would go forwards, backwards, and sideways in time.
The curved shape and angle of the TARDIS beds puts me in mind of the sleeping habits of the Minbari from Babylon 5.
The Food Machine has a button marked “milk”. Apparently milk is important enough to warrant its own button.
At some point in his journeys the Doctor wrote “FAST RETURN” on the TARDIS control console to remind himself of the location of the fast return switch, presumably in case he needed to use it in an emergency.
THE DOCTOR
DOCTOR: Don't you see I wouldn't allow them to hurt you, child? They're very resourceful and cunning, and it only leaves me one recourse. They must be put off the ship.
SUSAN: No! You can't do that!
DOCTOR: I can and I must.
BARBARA: But you can't open the doors.
DOCTOR: Don't underestimate my powers, young lady.
SUSAN: Look, Grandfather. You've no means of telling what's out there. There may be no air, it may be freezing, it may be too hot to exist.
I cannot recall the Doctor ever being so threatening towards anyone - especially not towards anyone he travels with. He is being most definitely cruel and cowardly.
DOCTOR: No, you mustn't be frightened of me. Not now, please. I can't explain, but I've just realised the danger we're in.
Fortunately, the Doctor recovers and his darker aspect is not revealed again in the show for a very long time. It will be interesting to reflect back on the Doctor's behaviour in this serial when I see the moral certainty and bravery that starts gradually coming into the character in later serials.
DOCTOR: I can't take you back, Susan. I can't.
Momentarily forgetting what I already know from later serials and Doctor Who mythology concerning the Doctor's planet, and based only on this early serial and the two preceding serials, the above quote raised certain questions for me. Is the Doctor lying to Susan about his ability to get them back to their own planet? Or, perhaps their planet is lost and there is no longer anywhere for him to get them back to? Is the TARDIS wandering aimlessly through time and space? Or, is the Doctor trying to find a new home for himself and his granddaughter?
If the Doctor and Susan have visited other universes, is it possible that they originate from another universe or even a higher plane of existence?
We hear the Doctor name-dropping for the first time when he mentions that he got a coat from Gilbert and Sullivan.
SUSAN
Susan starts speaking with a strange - almost mature - voice when she starts brandishing the scissors. She continues to use that voice for a large part of this serial. Is that Susan's real voice? It is as if she has dropped a pretence. Is her more familiar voice one she adopted (as she adopted the name Susan) on twentieth century Earth to fit in at Coal Hill School?
OTHER THOUGHTS
According to this serial the events on Skaro in The Daleks took place in the future (relative to Ian and Barbara's native time).
The psychological violence and the way in which time behaves in this serial reminds me very much of the later ATV show Sapphire and Steel.
I will not pretend to completely understand the explanation for what was happening in this serial, but I enjoyed it all the same.
DOCTOR: Well now, we can all start again, eh? Yes, we can. Yes.
The very first season of Doctor Who is presented as one long continuous story. The title of each individual episode is shown on-screen rather than the overall serial title. The end of each serial leads into the beginning of the next. It also feels like one continuous story, perhaps more than any other season of the 1963 - 1989 run.
This two-parter is entirely necessary to that continuing story. Things could not go on with the Doctor at odds with Ian and Barbara. A situation made most difficult for Susan whose loyalties to her grandfather and her school teachers are tested. The events of the previous two serials had not been an adventure for anyone. The four main characters were artificially forced together to survive against the Tribe of Gum and the Daleks. There is no tangible villain or antagonist in this serial. Instead the four main characters have to confront themselves and each other.
DOCTOR: Yes, you haven't forgiven me, have you.
BARBARA: You said terrible things to us.
DOCTOR: Yes, I suppose it's the injustice that's upsetting you, and when I made a threat to put you off the ship it must have affected you very deeply.
BARBARA: What do you care what I think or feel?
DOCTOR: As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves.
The end of this serial does feel like the beginning of an adventure. The Doctor is helping Barbara with her coat and giving her his arm, Ian is laughing, Susan is throwing snowballs, and all of the wrongs are, if not forgotten, at least forgiven.
THE TARDIS
IAN: A machine that can think for itself?
BARBARA: Yes.
IAN: Is that feasible, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Oh, think not as you or I do, but it must be able to think as a machine. You see, it has a bank of computers.
There is some ambiguity about the sentience of the TARDIS and I like it.
As this serial is set entirely within the TARDIS, it is the most time that the interior is seen on-screen during the William Hartnell run. It is a perfect mix of the alien and the familiar. The inclusion of the items from different periods of history (picked up on their travels) make it easy for me to believe that the TARDIS has been the Doctor and Susan's home for at least the last few years.
Four or five journeys back the Doctor and Susan almost lost the TARDIS on Quinnis of “the fourth universe”. Presumably the TARDIS is capable of travelling to parallel or alternate universes. This seems to fit with the original conception of Doctor Who as a show that would go forwards, backwards, and sideways in time.
The curved shape and angle of the TARDIS beds puts me in mind of the sleeping habits of the Minbari from Babylon 5.
The Food Machine has a button marked “milk”. Apparently milk is important enough to warrant its own button.
At some point in his journeys the Doctor wrote “FAST RETURN” on the TARDIS control console to remind himself of the location of the fast return switch, presumably in case he needed to use it in an emergency.
THE DOCTOR
DOCTOR: Don't you see I wouldn't allow them to hurt you, child? They're very resourceful and cunning, and it only leaves me one recourse. They must be put off the ship.
SUSAN: No! You can't do that!
DOCTOR: I can and I must.
BARBARA: But you can't open the doors.
DOCTOR: Don't underestimate my powers, young lady.
SUSAN: Look, Grandfather. You've no means of telling what's out there. There may be no air, it may be freezing, it may be too hot to exist.
I cannot recall the Doctor ever being so threatening towards anyone - especially not towards anyone he travels with. He is being most definitely cruel and cowardly.
DOCTOR: No, you mustn't be frightened of me. Not now, please. I can't explain, but I've just realised the danger we're in.
Fortunately, the Doctor recovers and his darker aspect is not revealed again in the show for a very long time. It will be interesting to reflect back on the Doctor's behaviour in this serial when I see the moral certainty and bravery that starts gradually coming into the character in later serials.
DOCTOR: I can't take you back, Susan. I can't.
Momentarily forgetting what I already know from later serials and Doctor Who mythology concerning the Doctor's planet, and based only on this early serial and the two preceding serials, the above quote raised certain questions for me. Is the Doctor lying to Susan about his ability to get them back to their own planet? Or, perhaps their planet is lost and there is no longer anywhere for him to get them back to? Is the TARDIS wandering aimlessly through time and space? Or, is the Doctor trying to find a new home for himself and his granddaughter?
If the Doctor and Susan have visited other universes, is it possible that they originate from another universe or even a higher plane of existence?
We hear the Doctor name-dropping for the first time when he mentions that he got a coat from Gilbert and Sullivan.
SUSAN
Susan starts speaking with a strange - almost mature - voice when she starts brandishing the scissors. She continues to use that voice for a large part of this serial. Is that Susan's real voice? It is as if she has dropped a pretence. Is her more familiar voice one she adopted (as she adopted the name Susan) on twentieth century Earth to fit in at Coal Hill School?
OTHER THOUGHTS
According to this serial the events on Skaro in The Daleks took place in the future (relative to Ian and Barbara's native time).
The psychological violence and the way in which time behaves in this serial reminds me very much of the later ATV show Sapphire and Steel.
I will not pretend to completely understand the explanation for what was happening in this serial, but I enjoyed it all the same.