The Web of Fear

As it is a Troughton base under siege, featuring a classic monster in England, with Lethbridge-Stewart making an appearance, The Web of Fear represents for some fans the very ideal of what a Doctor Who story should be. For those fans, the rediscovery of this story (with just one episode still missing) must have seemed like a dream come true. I remain unconvinced that this story is in any way a classic or a particularly great story, but it was good to be able to finally view it.

There is always an element of paranoia in base-under siege stories, but The Web of Fear seems to take it to another level. Nobody trusts anybody in this story, apart from the TARDIS crew who trust each other, Professor Travers who trusts the TARDIS crew and Travers and his daughter trust each other. Anybody else could be an agent of the Great Intelligence. For much of the story, it creates a sense of claustrophobia, particularly combined with the underground setting, but at some point, the tension starts to get tedious. This is not helped by the six-part length of the story. It is uncomfortably padded out.

This story is famous, of course, for having the first appearance of the Brigadier, then just a Colonel. It has been pointed out by many that he seems a quite different character to the one we meet in the UNIT stories; though there is a pretty big difference between the portrayal of the Brigadier in Season 7 and the rest of the Pertwee era. For me what was most striking and surprising about the Colonel was his readiness to believe that the Doctor really had a machine that could get his men out of the Underground. This contrasts remarkably with the absurdity of his scepticism in the UNIT stories, most especially in The Three Doctors.

The return of Professor Travers brings with it pseudo-companion Anne Travers. Anne is a likeable and intelligent female character, who is arguably in some ways perhaps a prototype of Liz Shaw. Her relationship with her ageing father is nicely portrayed. According to the novel, Millennial Rites, Anne Travers goes on to succeed Rache Jensen as scientific adviser to the Cabinet and helps to establish UNIT. With the presence in the serial of a pseudo-companion, Jamie and Victoria are left a little bit redundant at times, but in the case of Victoria, that is probably not a bad thing.

It is quite remarkable how similar this story is to Fury of the Deep. Both stories about a mysterious intelligence that takes control of humans and which manifests itself as foam. I very much prefer Fury from the Deep, as parisitic seaweed is more interesting than robotic Yeti.

The monsters in the London Underground are Yeti, they might as well be Cybermen or Ice Warriors. Shooting people with web guns is not a particularly Yeti-ish thing to do. Rather than strange mysterious monsters of the mountains, they are standard sci-fi robot monsters. What we get in this story is the arrival of the worst idea in Doctor Who, the 'Yeti in the loo' theory. This notion holds that a monster is inherently more interesting for being placed in a mundane setting. This is an idea that tends to lead to ludicrous plotting, as well as a lack of atmosphere. A Yeti on a misty mountain is scary; a Yeti in a loo is at risk of seeming rather comical. Unfortunately, the writers of the present series of Doctor Who have been rather too attached to this kind of story. For all it's good points, Web of Fear has to take the blame for this.

The Enemy of the World (the real thing this time)

I reviewed the audio version of this ages ago, but having watched the rediscovered episodes, I had to review it again.

If any story in Season 5 deserved to be rediscovered it was The Enemy of the World. Season 5 is popular with many fans, but I find the run of bases-under siege a bit tedious, even if Fury of the Deep has an interesting monster. Enemy of the World is different; a story with no monsters, that is driven by human drama, interesting characters and surprisingly effective James Bond visuals. It feels such a refreshing break within thsi most predictable season.

The Enemy of the World succeeds because it is a story driven by character. It is about a corrupt dangereous world of the near future and about the people that inhabit that world. We have such a fantastic cast of characters; the abused but dignified Fariah, the sincere but doomed Dennes, the cynical Australian chef Griff, the self-serving Kent and of course, the brash megalomaniac Salamander. Griff contributes absolutely nothing to the plot, yet in him we see how a person in a terrifying and brutal environment can survive through humour. Likewise, the moment when Dennes jokes about it being a long time since his food was cut up for him shows such basic human dignity in the face of certain death.

Troughton's Mexican accent is a bit odd, but his portrayal of two roles is simply amazing. Particularly delightful is the way he plays the Doctor impersonating Salamander and he manages to make the impersonation distinct from the real Salamander.

Before the rediscovery of these episodes, there was always an uncertainty as to whether the visual elements of this story really lived up to their grandiose aspirations. The answer turned out to be that they did. For a Doctor Who story, this is remarkably visually impressive with the helicopter and hovercraft scenes. This is a clear tribute to the strength of Barry Letts' direction. Even in the later episodes, where things get more obviously studio bound, we get a great shot of the lift shaft to Salamander's lair.

If the story has a significant flaw, I would say it is the way things shift once Salamander's game is revealed. Once we move away from the corrupt backstabbing of Salamder's court and into his underground den, we enter more generic Doctor Who territory. It feels uncomfortably like Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

Jack Graham over on Shabogan Graffiti offers some good comments on the complex racial politics of this story. While it is great to have a black actress playing a significant role in a Sixties Doctor Who story, the fact she plays a standard racial role as a slave is problematic. Even worse, it is implied that she did something wrong and it is her fault she is a slave. Any critique of racism is rather muted by the fact that she is enslaved by a Mexican, rather than by a European white man (Troughton bronzing-up is problematic in itself). Of course, it might be assumed, with Troughton's European features, that Salamander is a Mexican of primarily European descent. There are lighter-skinned Mexicans and no doubt some of them are racist toward black Mexicans of African descent. I am reminded of the X-Files episode El Mundo Gira, in which we meet an immigration police agent who assists Mulder and Scully. His accent and cultural outlook indicate he is of Mexican, or at least Latin American origin, though his fair skin indicates European descent. He posesses a status and privilege that contrasts massively with the darker-skinned Mexican illegals that we meet in the episode and he displays to them an attitude of racist contempt.


The recovery of this story was truly a delight for Doctor Who fans in the 50th anniversary year.

The Ice Warriors

I really did not want to buy The Ice Warriors DVD. The Ice Warriors is a story that I find deathly dull. However, it occurred to me that if fans don't buy these DVD releases with animated reconstruction, we won't see any more of them. It would be nice to see The Crusade with animated reconstructions (though apparently Moonbase/ Underwater Menace is to be the last classic DVD release). So I bought the wretched DVD.

I did not find myself liking the story any more than last time I watched it. It was nice to see the missing episodes animated. The animation is simple, but highly effective and infinitely superior to the hasty linking sequences on the old VHS release. Yet the restoration of these episodes only served to show how slow and tedious this story is.

It is unfair to criticize some older Doctor Who stories for being too long, after all the original viewers didn't sit down to watch whole serials in one go. They watched the episodes week by week. The Web Planet and Dr Who and the Silurians have enough plot twists to keep one's interest despite their length. On the other hand, there is nothing in The Ice Warriors to justify its six episode length. It feels artificially drawn out.

This story is mostly loved for being the first appearance of the Ice Warriors themselves. Their costumes are very inspired, with the crocodile like armour, the make-up under the helmet and the curious tufts of hair sprouting from their joints. They are unfortunately quite slow and cumbersome, but there is some compensation in the skill with which the actors give them distinctive movements. The Ice Warriors are at their best here. They have more distinctive personalities, where in later stories they would be reduced to just heavies.

Victoria is incredibly annoying in this story. She spends much of it whimpering and crying. Jamie is a little bid underused for much of the proceedings. Dr. Who has some technical problems to solve, but I don't quite feel that he is as engaged in this story as he is in others. Of the guest characters, Leader Clent is perhaps the most interesting.

There has been much discussion about when this story is set. The Radio Times gave it a date of 3000 AD, but most fans seem to favour a date of 5000 AD, around the time of Magnus Greel. For me the decisive factor is that nobody recognizes the Ice Warriors. By 5000 AD, the Ice Warriors would become a major power within the Federation. While what we see here appears incompatible with the Doctor's description in The Mutants of the Earth as totally urbanized, this is not necessarily the case. We only see a small part of the Earth in this story. Perhaps more equatorial regions are totally covered in the huge urban hive that the Doctor described in that later story.

The Enemy of the World

The TARDIS crew sort out Salamander, a 21st century dictator with an uncanny resemblance to the Second Doctor.

Episode 3 is the only one of the six parts that survive. I had to listen to this one on audio. I think it's probably easy to just listen to the audio and let one's imagination work than trying to watch an irritating set of immobile telesnaps. That said, I don't think much of the BBC recordings. Frazer Hines narration is rather uninspiring, being either flatly descriptive or a bit too droll. Perhaps it would be a big departure from the original format, but I can't help thinking that in-character narration might make the recording a little more dynamic. It would also be nice to have a complete recon package. Ideally, the CD would come with the photography and the surviving episodes on DVD.

It has been suggested before that there are remarkable similarities between the Doctor and James Bond. Both are great British cultural exports that began in the Sixties and have lasted for years. Both are radical individualists with a flamboyant dress sense and who make heavy use of gadgets. While the latter may have a more obvious libido than the other, both like to have a lady around with them. The Sixth Doctor shared Bond's habit of making quips at the death of bad guys. The production team have quite clearly looked to James Bond for inspiration. This has been most obvious in the Third Doctor years, with the Doctor working with a security organisation and the Ambassadors of Death being just as much a spy thriller as a science fiction story. Nevertheless, throughout the history of the show you can see James Bond elements. Many of the villains that the Doctor faces could fit into a James Bond film very easily. It is this story, The Enemy of the World, which is the closest that Doctor Who has come to an all-out James Bond-style spy thriller. It's a good thing too. The Enemy of the World is a wonderful demonstration of how flexible the format of Doctor Who can be. It is particularly needed in the Patrick Troughton era, with it's endless base-under-siege plots and in Season 5 with it's relentless monsters.

Season 5 is best known for it's monster stories- Cybermen, Ice Warriors and Yeti. The Enemy of the World is conspicuous for it's lack of an alien monster. Nevertheless, it gives us an incredible human monster in the form of Salamander. He is so ruthless, self-serving and cold-blooded! What is even more scary is the fact that he is hailed by the masses as a saviour of humanity. It is a bleak idea indeed. Troughton's Mexican accent may be a little comical, but he does a superb job of portraying the evil dictator. Kudos to him for taking on two roles and doing a splendid job of both.

The Enemy of the World features such a great cast of supporting characters- the sadistic Benik, the glamorous Astrid, the ultimately cynical and self-serving Kent, the abused Fariah and Griffin, the hilariously grumpy chef.

Jamie and Victoria, being from the historical past both comes across as a little out of their depth in this strange bleak world of the 21st century. However, through boldness and pluck they both manage to prove effective antagonists of Salamander's schemes.

It is easy to complain of these serials being too long, but at six parts it can feel a little tired as a story. It does feel a little awkward that it is Astrid and not the Doctor who frees the underground people at the end, but I suppose the Doctor has always given others the chance to be the hero or heroine.

The Tomb of the Cybermen

The Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria discover the curse of the Cyberman's tomb.

There is something rather cruel about the way fan opinion has shifted on this story. At one time, Tomb of the Cybermen was spoken of with awe as the great lost story that everybody longed to see. Then it was finally discovered in Hong Kong and fans discovered that actually it was really nowhere near as good as they had imagined. In fan circles, it became cool to rubbish and demean this story. Which shows how shallow and fickle we Doctor Who fans can sometimes be. On account of this, my inclination is to be as kind and gentle to this once well-remembered story as possible.

Probably one element that added to the high expectations of the story is the title. It might be a bit of a Dr. Who cliche for stories to be the something of something, but this one is distinctive. The title raises the obvious question in the audience mind, how did the Cybermen come to be entombed and are they going to get out? It is a clever and evocative title.

Shall we get the faults with this serial over with as quickly as possible? I suppose the first thing to mention is the horrendous racial stereotyping. You have Toberman, the strong, mostly silent black servant who saves the day only out of faithfulness for his mistress (incidently, the Cybermen's rectangular mouthes rather reminds me of a Golligwog or the Black and White Minstrel Show!). Then there is Klieg, who seems to be an Israeli Jew and his accomplice, Kaftan, who is probably also intended to be Jewish. I suppose we can also mention the pathetic attempts at American accents. A good deal of the acting from the guest cast is uniformly bad, though Shirley Cooklin is not too bad as Kaftan. The characters are all cliched stereotypes. Some of the science in the story is rather dodgy. The plot is not the strongest.



Nevertheless, for all its weaknesses this is an effective story because it has atmosphere. It is like a cheesy horror movie that still manages to scare one. There is a real sense of foreboding when the archaeologists explore the tomb. The Cybermen have real menace when they emerge from their tombs covered in slime. The Cybermen are frightening because they share with Mummies and Zombies that sense of body-horror. They are beings that were human, but are now something less than human. And they can make you into one of them. 'You belong to uzzz. You shall become like uzzz.'

For my part, I prefer the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet who were more human and less robotic. These Cybermen are still very effective with the Controller's mechanical voice and their blank expressions. The Controller' costume is great, with his oversized cranium. On the other hand, giving the Cybermen a super-intelligent leader reduces the individual Cybermen to just being heavies. In previous Cybermen, stories, the ordinary Cybermen had more menace. In the later story, The Invasion, the Cybermen came across as useless and brainless zombies.



Tomb of the Cybermen is of course Victoria's first appearance as a companion proper, after her first appearance in Evil of the Daleks. Deborah Watling is not the strongest of actresses, but she endears herself in this. Victoria's reactive chemistry with Kaftan is great; she instantly picks up that Kaftan is up to no good.

Frazer Hines is fun and funny as Jamie, with his usual perfect camaderie with the Doctor. Patrick Troughton is glorious as the Doctor. You can see touches of McCoy's later dark and manipulative Doctor here. He shows great tenderness in the way he comforts Victoria and tells her of how incredible her new life can be.

Trivial point: Notice that Kaftan is wearing sandals. Once you get into the coloured era of Doctor Who, you find that characters in space or the future rarely wear sandals. Later directors seemed to think that in the future, everybody would either wear rubber ankle boots or big knee-high jackboots.