strange_complex: (Cyberman from beneath)
[personal profile] strange_complex
The plot of this story has to be one of the most non-sensical Who has ever served up. Apparently, Earth somehow has an upside-down twin planet called Mondas, which wanders at will around the universe (or possibly just the solar system). But this wandering has no discernible effect on life on its own surface, or on any neighbouring celestial bodies. It suddenly appears next to the Earth, and starts 'draining' its energy (again, with little observable environmental effect), while its resident Cybermen land on the Earth for some unspecified purpose - possibly just to gloat a little. While everyone blunders around wondering what to do, Mondas over-charges and explodes, again having no particular effect on any other planet, but conveniently melting all the Cybermen who have landed on Earth's surface at the same time. Whereupon everyone heaves a collective sigh of relief, and lives happily ever after.

In other words, this is a plot which Russell T. Davies would reject as being Just Too Silly, even for a season finale. And you know, that makes me kinda sad. Because when people criticise New Who for ridiculous plotting, it seems to me that there is almost always an undertone in their complaints which suggests that things weren't like this in The Good Old Days. Really, though, this story proves that they were - and also reminds us that you can have worse flaws in a Doctor Who story than a silly plot. Because, overall, this is actually pretty good stuff.

It's the first ever outing for the Cybermen - and I think also one of their best appearances. Well, their costumes need some work. I don't really mind the bare hands and the ski-masks, but I do think the packs strapped to their chests look terribly unwieldly, making them hard to take seriously as an 'improvement' on ordinary humans. Nonetheles, I entirely forGIIVVEEE this for the way THAAAAT they SPEEAAAKK. It's not just the randomly emphasised and elongated syllables, though those are cool. It's also the fact that their vocabulary is noticeably sophisticated and their tone chillingly polite. It differentiates them from the straightforwardly brutal and aggressive Daleks much more than most later versions of the Cybermen seem to manage. And so does the fact that they do things like dress up in cloaks taken from humans whom they have already killed, in order to trick other humans into approaching them. This makes them something quite different from the mindless killing-machines they have become today, and rather more scary in my view.

The story is set in Earth's near-future - 1986, to be precise. Putting this together with The War Machines and its lack of alien invaders only two stories earlier, as well as the (now-nearly-defunct) genre of the 'pure' historical, it looks as though the production team in this period were still working on the basis that stories involving actual alien invasions of Earth had to be set in the future (à la The Dalek Invasion of Earth), and never the past or the present. Glancing ahead through the schedules, it seems like The Faceless Ones will be the first bona fide case of aliens on contemporary Earth - but I'll have to find out for sure when I get there.

Most of the action takes place on an Antarctic base, and although there are admirable attempts to convey a wider frame of action by showing us scenes aboard orbiting space-shuttles and inside the headquarters of 'International Space Command' in Geneva, the Antarctic scenes actually have a distinctly 'base-under-siege' feel about them. I understand from reviews by people like [livejournal.com profile] altariel and [livejournal.com profile] nwhyte that this is about to become terribly prevalent during the Troughton era, so I'd better get used to it I guess. Which isn't inherently a bad thing, as it can produce some great stories - New Who's Midnight being one of my favourite examples. But at the same time I can well see how it could grow tiring if overdone.

This is Hartnell's last story, and he isn't even in the third episode of it, either. The Doctor faints early in episode 3, and spends the rest of it in bed. I'd assumed at first that this was because the production team just couldn't wait to get rid of him, but Wikipedia tells me that it's actually because he was too ill to work that week, which is very sad to know. All the same, it works well enough in story terms. It lends substance to the Doctor's claim that his body is 'wearing a bit thin', and fits alongside a similar fainting fit in Marco Polo as an established characteristic. And for all Hartnell's failing health, he performs perfectly well to my eye when he is on the screen. He has some good stand-offs with the personnel of the Antarctic space-base - especially the commander, Cutler. And from what remains of the fourth episode (including quite a number of clips of Hartnell specifically), his performance in the run-up to his regeneration seems to have been pretty compelling. Certainly the scene itself gave me tingles, even in its now-incomplete condition.

On the regeneration itself, New Who watch was quite surprised to note that it bears more comparison with the Nine-Ten and Ten-Eleven regenerations than I would have guessed - all three take place aboard the TARDIS, and essentially consist of one Doctor's face being obscured by a blinding light, and then another's fading in to take its place. Even the Doctor's planned final line, which allegedly was intended to be something like "No... no, I simply will not give in!" would have been much in the same vein as Ten's "I don't want to go". Apparently this had to be left out in a rush to get the scene recorded, but unless you know this, it doesn't feel as though it has been skimped on. I felt that it had plenty of appropriate drama and mystery. And I especially liked the way that the Doctor had put on the same cloak and astrakhan hat for this story as he wore way back in An Unearthly Child, recalling where we first met him and creating a sense of coming full circle at the end. I've said before the details of what the First Doctor wears are important, and that's another good example of why.

Meanwhile, there is plenty of room for Ben and Polly to shine. Ben pretty much takes over the Doctor's normal role in episode 3, arguing with the base commander, working out how to overcome the Cybermen, and putting in plenty of action-hero business along the way. Polly, meanwhile, deploys her feminine wiles in an interesting little exchange with General Cutler. While Ben is imprisoned for having shown himself too inclined to interfere, she gets to remain in the control room, and engages in the following piece of dialogue:
POLLY: Can I stay and help?
CUTLER: What do you think you could do?
POLLY: Well, I could make some coffee or something.
CUTLER: Oh all right, I suppose we could do with some.
The next thing we see is Polly using the opportunity of coffee-making as a ruse to engage in conversation with the base's chief scientist, Dr. Barclay, who has already shown some reservations about General Cutler's plans, so that she can convince him to change sides. On one level, this is quite subversive, because it shows General Cutler up as an idiot for underestimating Polly, and assuming that she can safely be treated as subservient and won't interfere as Ben has been doing. On another level, though, it really isn't subversive at all, because it indulges the comfortable idea that women don't really suffer from being treated as mindless domestic servants, because they always have the option to play the system to their own advantage anyway. The logical conclusion to that position is that feminism is unnecessary: there is no need to put any effort into addressing social inequalities, because (some) women are already subverting them. So, maybe not so great after all.

Amongst the secondary characters, two stand out on the Antarctic base - Dr. Barclay, the morally-minded scientist, and General Cutler, the unstable base commander. Cutler basically degenerates from a no-nonsense military man to a dangerous megalomaniac over the course of the story, but there is at least some attempt to give a reason for this. I never quite understood the ins and outs of why, but somehow he finds himself facing a situation in which the most sensible action for the sake of the Earth - that is, sitting tight and waiting for Mondas to over-charge - will endanger the life of his son, who is in a space-ship up in orbit. It puts him in a similar position to Agamemnon, asked to sacrifice his daughter Iphigeneia to the goddess Artemis so that the Greek fleet could get the winds it needed to sail to Troy. But where Agamemnon chose to put the interests of the Greek fleet over the life of his daughter, Cutler chooses his son, and prepares to fire a deadly Z-bomb at Mondas which will also destroy life on one half of the Earth's surface. I'm not saying he's a magnificently-crafted study in the essential dilemmas of the human condition - but he's definitely a bit more than your average one-dimensional villain.

Meanwhile, up in space, the story begins with two astronauts above an orbiting rocket, one of whom is black. This isn't Doctor Who's first black character - we've already had one of the delegates in Mission to the Unknown / The Daleks' Master Plan, and a pirate called Jamaica in The Smugglers. I can't remember now whether the delegate ever says anything - it may be a non-speaking role. But the pirate and the astronaut between them add up to an interesting insight on where Doctor Who stood on race issues at this time.

The pirate is a subordinate character, probably meant to be a runaway slave, who does jobs like guarding the prisoners on Captain Pike's ship. He isn't particularly bright, and gets tricked by the Doctor as part of an escape plan. In a story set in the 17th century, though, it wouldn't have been very realistic to show him occupying a more powerful social position, even on a pirate ship. Meanwhile, in the near future of The Tenth Planet, the black astronaut appears to be operating on entirely equal terms with his white colleague. In addition to being black, he also seems to have an American accent - but that seems to be part of an overall attempt to portray a multi-national involvement in the space programme, so I don't think it's meant to limit us to understanding him as representative of black Americans only. Between the two, then, we seem to have a recognition that black people have been socially disadvantaged in the past, but a hopeful vision of this no longer being the case in the future.

Which would be great. Except that back at International Space Command in Geneva, a different hierarchy is in operation. Here, the guy in charge is a white European, with an accent that suggests he is meant to be Swiss or something. Around him, we see black and Asian characters in what appears to be ethnic costume, and who I assume we are meant to understand as representatives of other nations. But they never speak or show any kind of agency of their own. They are totally token characters - just set-dressing for the important white guy, really. So, again, maybe not so great after all.

Not perfect, then, but overall a pretty good story. And with that in the bag, I have now seen all of the First Doctor's televised stories - at least as far as that's possible today. That makes him the third Doctor for whom I've reached that position, the previous ones being the Fourth and the Sixth. I've really enjoyed this era of Doctor Who - the historical stories, the character of Barbara and Hartnell's Doctor himself have been particular draws, but really it has been consistently good on almost every important level. I think it deserves a proper overview eulogy post, just as I did for the Fourth Doctor. But this has been quite enough for one entry!

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