VV5 - The Invasion 5

Doctor Who takes some tenuous steps into addressing the rising feminism attitudes of the late 1960s in this episode, with disastrous results. Isobel wants to sneak down into the sewers to take some pictures of the Cybermen for the Brigadier to use as proof when he tries to lobby for assistance at UNIT Headquarters in Geneva. But the Brigadier turns her down flat on account that she is "a young woman. This is a job for (his) men.". Isobel reacts to this as a chauvinistic attack upon her gender, and is backed up by Zoe after Jamie passes his own, equally misogynistic, judgement on the situation.

Thus, without telling anyone, the two girls, with a worried Jamie, tag along, sneak down into the sewers (illegally), where a kind, innocent policeman sees them. The policeman follows them down into the sewer, where he's murdered by a pair of marauding Cybermen. The episode ends with the three crazy kids (as the Brigadier calls them) in dire trouble, being advanced on by Cybermen from both sides.

Now, the Brigadier's comment to Isobel might have appeared sexist (and it possibly was), but really, his main intention in turning Isobel's idea down was to keep untrained amateurs like her and Zoe out of harm's way. The girls didn't listen, and now a policeman is dead, with more deaths to come, possibly, in the next episode. Nice one, Isobel.

As for the Cybermen, it quickly becomes apparent that these versions are much different than ones we've seen in previous stories, and I'm not talking about their appearance, either. These Invasion Cybermen seem to function almost as drones - hatched out of cocoons, obeying orders of humans, willingly accepting experimentation on them by Gregory, and so forth. They're not only playing second fiddle to the Cyber Director (Coordinator? I've heard both terms being used), but since the Cyber Director is already playing second fiddle to Tobias Vaughn, that knocks the Cybermen down the ranks in the orchestra that I'm not even sure what part they're playing anymore.

VV4 - The Invasion 4

One thing I find puzzling about this first proper UNIT story is the curiously familiar relationship that the Brigadier has with his direct subordinate, Captain Turner. I actually just had to look up Captain Turner's name because he is constantly referred to by the Brigadier as "Jimmy". The Brig never has such an informal relationship with any of his officers in the future. He calls Captain Yates by his first name, Mike, on occasion, and we never actually learn Benton's first name. But here, it's always Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.

Is Jimmy a nephew of the Brigadier, or some other sort of relative? A friend? Better than friends? Was there someone before Doris, perhaps....? Slash fiction writers, you have your setup. Have at 'er.

This episode rights the ship a bit after a meandering third episode, with its centerpiece being the helicopter rescue of Zoe and Isobel. While I was watching that (or, rather, watching the animated reconstruction), I couldn't help but think how far Doctor Who had come in just five short years (this episode went out on November 23, 1968, five years to the day after the series first premiered). A big budget(-ish) helicopter stunt sequence on film must have been the furthest thing from the minds of Verity Lambert and Sydney Newman when they were trying to stretch their £250/episode budget to cover the use of three ancient cameras on a crowded Lime Grove Studios set.

And what's this? A Cyberman finally appears at the end of the episode! Hooray! I'm not sure that this story was ever marketed as a Cybermen story, or if their return was kept as a surprise (although given that the Cybermen seemed to feature about every four months at this stage in the series' history, and the fact that hundreds of people crowded in behind the cameras to watch the production crew film scenes with Cybermen a couple months previously, any surprise that was there would have been muted, to say the least), but imagine the disappointment of children everywhere who have been waiting for four weeks to finally catch their first glimpse of their favourite monster.

VV3 - The Invasion 3

The Invasion was originally supposed to be a shorter story, but was fleshed out to eight episodes when script problems on other serials in Season Six resulted in those serials being dropped. Episode Three shows the stretch marks of that expansion.

At the end of Episode Two, Packer captures The Doctor and Jamie, while Zoe and Isobel are locked away in a crate. At the end of Episode Three, Packer is looking to capture The Doctor and Jamie, while Zoe and Isobel are still locked in a crate. In the intervening time, The Doctor and Jamie are taken out to Vaughn's office at the IE factory (which, conveniently, looks exactly like his office in London), find out very little information about Vaughn, have a meeting with Professor Watkins and go out of their way to not reveal any information during their chat, then escape again.

All this episode does is make Packer out to look like an idiot on several occasions, and drop the cool factor of Vaughn towards the end as the IE Managing Director is resorted to shouting at Packer for his repeated failures during the past 24 minutes. He redeems himself, though, when he chomps out the line "I'll be in my office, and please don't fail this time. There's a good fellow".

Oh, and still no Cybermen, but at least they're referred to on a couple of occasions as "our allies" by Vaughn and Packer.

VV2 - The Invasion 2

The seed for the next five years of Doctor Who are firmly planted in this episode with the introduction of UNIT, the Brigadier, lots of military equipment, and extensive location filming. It all looks and feels very familiar now, looking back on it, so much so that seeing Patrick Troughton's Doctor in the middle of all of this seems almost out of place. Troughton's Doctor is a deceptive little cosmic hobo whose image is almost overwhelmed by the scale of the operation around him. The only thing more strong and defiant than UNIT in these early stages is the strong and defiant image (and ego) of Jon Pertwee's Doctor. Pertwee's Doctor was made for UNIT. Troughton seems like more of a place holder in this, keeping Pertwee's seat warm for a few more months.

It's nice to see Zoe have a female friend to chum around with in Isobel Watkins. It's also, admittedly, nice to see them chum around in skirts so short that if one was to sew both skirts together, they still wouldn't go down past the knee. I'm not sure I, for one second, believe that Isobel actually knows what she's doing when it comes to photography, but her and Zoe make a good team. Their destruction of the reception computer at International Electromatix is fun, but not half as fun as Vaughn's reaction to it.

I may as well start the Tobias Vaughn love-in now. Obviously, Kevin Stoney is fantastic as the IE chairman, and the real villain of this story, no matter what the Cybermen have to say about things. Just as he made the first half of The Daleks Master Plan three years earlier, Stoney steals not only every scene in this episode, but he steals every scene he's not in because Vaughn is so enthralling that it's easy to spend the time while watching non-Vaughn scenes waiting with anticipation for the next Vaughn scene to come up. Stoney portrays Vaughn with such a defiant coolness that it comes close to being the definitive portrait of a villain in Doctor Who. You are never in doubt that Vaughn is always (repeat, always) in complete control of the situation at this stage of the story. Even though he seems to be taking commands from the strange machine (who I'll call the Cyber Coordinator for now) behind his office wall, you know that Vaughn looks at the arrangement like a partnership, with him as the primary partner. Just as when Stoney's Mavic Chen batted aside a Dalek eyestalk in The Daleks' Master Plan, I love it when Vaughn angrily closes the door on the Cyber Coordinator while the machine is in mid-sentence.

I also can't go on anymore without mentioning what might be my favourite music score to date by Don Harper. His theme for UNIT might be a little busy for my liking, but the rest of his music sets the tone for this entire story that it is impossible for me to not think of the score whenever this story is mentioned. From the moody music often used to accompany The Doctor and Jamie skulking about the IE grounds, to the groovy lounge music used in scenes set in Vaughn's office, Harper's work on this story deserves all the accolades it has received over the years.

VV1 - The Invasion 1

Like most stories that begin with its sole focus on The Doctor and his companions, this episode starts very mysteriously with little explanation as to what is going on. The opening shot is that of the TARDIS reforming (taken from the end of the previous serial, The Mind Robber), with no sign of The Master (from The Land of Fiction, of course, not THAT Master), nor with any mention of him. Was The Mind Robber, indeed, just a dream?

The TARDIS crew doesn't have time to worry about this, though, as they're now facing the prospect of being blown out of space by a rocket launched from the dark side of the Moon(!). I assume the background to this will be explained. It certainly wasn't during the course of this episode. Anyway, once the TARDIS instigates an emergency landing, the crew seem to have arrived in the middle of a dictatorship, hitching a ride with someone who is on the outs with the prevailing leader and, particularly, his henchman.

As per usual for a Cybermen story, there is no sign of the metal beasts, nor are they imminent, apart from the strange computer in Tobias Vaughn's office. Oh, and seeing that there's eight episodes in this story, there'll be plenty of time to mention Kevin Stoney as Vaughn and just how bloody awesome he is.

I should also mention the neat novelty of the DVD release and the animated reconstructions for episodes one and four. The relative success of these reconstructions has led many fans to demand such recons for other missing stories, but, to be honest, the animation is slightly crude, reminding me, in an unflattering way, of other quickly made, Flash-animated cartoon series like 6teen (for those who didn't spend 6 years working at a TV station that broadcast cartoons, feel free to look that one up) and even the 2007 animated Doctor Who serial The Infinite Quest. As I said - a neat novelty, but probably not worth the considerable cost it took to bring them into being.

UU5 - The Mind Robber 5

Not only a surrealist piece of brilliance, The Mind Robber was also a landmark story for the future of the show behind the scenes, as it signaled a change for the way the series would be produced for the rest of its original run. This situation actually has its roots in the production of the previous serial, The Dominators. When that story was truncated from six episodes to five, the orphaned episode was adopted by The Mind Robber for its first episode, with the understanding that no further money could be spent on it. Thus, only the main cast could be used, along with any existing sets and props that were at the crew's disposal. Also, the increasing luxury of location filming was beginning to eat into the regulars' rehearsal time, as well as into their days off.

This didn't sit well with Patrick Troughton. Dismayed that, towards the end of an already long production block, the workload for not only him, but of his fellow regulars Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury, led Troughton to complain bitterly enough that each of the episodes in The Mind Robber were shortened to roughly 20 minutes in length, down from the usual 25 minutes. (Episode Five would be the shortest episode of Doctor Who ever made, clocking in at just over 18 minutes).

But further changes would be more evident in the subsequent production block. Instead of cranking out 42-45 episodes during the course of one production block, the sixth production block in the series' history would be just 34 episodes long (eventually spanning five stories), with time allotted before the rehearsal period of each story for location filming. It would signal the transition towards the more slick (yes, classic Doctor Who could be slick!) productions of the 1970s, as the rest of the Troughton stories to come would utilize pre-filming a lot more than any time in its history.

With that in mind, watching The Mind Robber is the unofficial end of 1960s Doctor Who in the way that it was produced. It's also a one-off shot at surrealism that was seldom tried again, and one that stands out and apart from the slicker, yet slightly less imaginative, stories to come.

UU4 - The Mind Robber 4

What a shame that Zoe comes from the 21st century. Her version of the 21st century seems so much more exciting than that of the real world 21st century. She works on a space station, was educated with advanced learning techniques - what a time to be alive. But then there's the "Hourly Telepress", and the comic book exploits of the great, the powerful, The Karkus.

It's a wonder how the Karkus ever had a following, really. The first of two appearances by Christopher Robbie in Doctor Who (and his second appearance seven years hence goes just as well), his Karkus is the weakest part of and otherwise excellent story thus far, although most of the blame has to be placed upon the fight scene that the Karkus and Zoe have soon after the cartoon superhero is introduced. In a perfect world, this would have been shot on film and had the benefit of editing. As it was recorded in the studio, we see Zoe holding her arms out in anticipation of the Karkus's punches, the Karkus doing flips on his own, independent of Zoe's efforts, and Wendy Padbury completely fluffing her line at the end of the scene.

The final shot of the episode, however, redeems any shortcomings that this episode might have, with the brilliant visual of Jamie and Zoe getting trapped in between the pages of a giant book. It's another in a long line of literal visualizations of the perils that The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe are experiencing (such as "Jamie is safe and well" and "when is a door not a door? When it's a jar" from earlier episodes). Jamie and Zoe are about to be trapped in fiction just as they're about to be trapped in a book. Superb stuff.

UU3 - The Mind Robber 3

One of my favourite things about The Mind Robber is the "stream of consciousness" feel to it. The setting goes from a forest of words to a cobweb forest to a long winding cave to a castle on top of a mountain and so on, without ever explaining why the location keeps changing to the viewer or the characters. Fictional characters are introduced and dispensed in quick succession, and giant clockwork soldiers serve as the wardens. It looks and feels like what it is probably trying to represent - a dream world.

The fact that The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe react to the changing scenery and situations with relatively little surprise leads me to believe that they are in a shared hallucination or a shared dream. If that's the case, the most obvious point to hypothesize that the dream started was when everyone was being tormented by the loud, pulsing sound in the TARDIS is Episode One. I honestly don't remember the details of how this story wraps up, or if it dovetails into the beginning of The Invasion, so I'll be intrigued to see if this little idea turns out.

I'm also willing to believe that many, many other people have come up with the whole "It was all a dream" idea, but this whole Chronic Hysteresis trip is trying to register my initial reactions from viewing each episode, and not relying on any pre-established thoughts and notions that have built up over the years and decades since it first aired.

I'll finally mention Bernard Horsfall, whose Gulliver is my favourite fictional character out of anyone in this story. My high opinion of him is based both on how much I enjoy Horsfall's performance, but also because of the fact that every line he speaks is a line from the book Gulliver's Travels. Not only that, but those lines are all crafted in beautiful English from over 200 years ago, and I have an enormous soft spot for archaic English.

UU2 - The Mind Robber 2

Can you imagine if Frazer Hines would have contracted chicken pox a few weeks earlier, during production of The Dominators? Or later, during the making of The Invasion? There would have to have been a hasty rewrite, have Jamie knocked out off camera by a Quark or Packer, and somehow pick him up the next week, all refreshed and ready to go as if nothing had happened.

Thankfully (well, not for Frazer Hines, though), the actor had to bow out of the most oddball of oddball stories made to that date (even predating the term "oddball" by a good 19 years), so the explanation of his absence in this story actually enhances the story, rather than providing a detraction and , indeed, a distraction. The introduction of the Hamish Wilson Jamie fits in with the story so well that had you not known the back story behind it, it would seem like just another chapter in an already brilliantly bizarre story.

We first hear (and almost see) "The Master" (quotation marks are used to differentiate him from, you know, The Master) in this episode, too. Emrys Jones is actually acting three characters in this episode - the robotlike, order barking, controller Master; his softer, calculating companion who acts as someone to bounce ideas off of, and the original, soft spoken man who would become the Master. It's a great, twitchy performance that seamlessly glides between each schizophrenic facet.

And then Bernard Horsfall turns up! But more from him later.

UU1 - The Mind Robber 1

To view Episode One of The Mind Robber today, out of context, is an interesting view, is notable for its surrealism, its (budget imposed) minimalist style, and it's famous closing shot of Zoe lying on the spinning TARDIS console, the TARDIS exploding, Zoe lying on the TARDIS spinning console, and Zoe lying on the TARDIS spinning console.

But to see this episode immediately after the 200+ episodes that precede it hits you like a smack in the face. A product of necessity and emergency, Episode One has a lot in common with another episode that was borne under similar circumstances, The Edge of Destruction. The Mind Robber, though, had the luxury of being able to use a white cyclorama and some stock (yellow) robot costumes. The result is mesmerising. When the TARDIS explodes at the end of the episode, all bets are off. We're through the looking glass here, folks. I can just about hear Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" playing in the background.

Doctor Who enters the real 1960s. It's going to be a hell of a trip.

TT5 - The Dominators 5

It's a damn shame that the Quarks are so adorable, because any menace they are trying to impress upon the characters and the view is lost by their cute-as-a-button voices, the way they spin around when they're agitated, and the fact that they blow up really, really well. They're also easily imitable by children (which is fitting as they were actually played by children), as any child with a large cardboard box, two empty shoe boxes, and his mom's favourite, circa-1968 lampshade, could make a Quark costume in about five minutes.

Both Dominators seem to kiss and make up after their initial frostiness, with Rago taking a horde of Quarks out with him to destroy and humans he comes across to help Toba complete his drilling task. His true nature shows through, though, in his final moments, when he screams the command, "OBEY!" to Toba seconds before their ship explodes. You almost think that, despite all the progress their relationship achieved during their vacation to Dulkis, Rago's last thought was blaming Toba for their failure.

By this time in Patrick Troughton's tenure in Doctor Who, he was starting to be able to call his shots a lot more than in the past. Not only did he get a week off during both The Web of Fear and The Wheel in Space, but he also managed to get of location filming for The Dominators. In his place, the producers hired an unconvincing double (whose name escapes me right now. I bet you Toby Hadoke would know). You'd think that director Morris Barry would use shots of Troughton's double in moderation, but there's some big, unintentional closeups of him in this story, particularly in this episode.

All in all, The Dominators is a bit of fun, punctuated with stretches of boredom and muted commentary about hippies and hawks. Given the lack of available Patrick Troughton stories on DVD, I'm surprised that this one hasn't hit the shelves before now, but I'll be looking forward to it when it does.

TT4 - The Dominators 4

The battle between not just the Dominators and the Dulkians comes to a head in this episode, but, even more so, the battle between aggression and pacifism. Early in the episode, just when the warlike Dominators are ready to impose their will over the entire Dulkian race, the ongoing feud between Rago and Toba flares up. Their argument is intense, and it takes their focus of the task at hand. I hope I'm not reading too much into it, but it shows what happens when you put two aggressive people on the same side - they will eventually fight each other.

Later on, when Rago storms the capital and demands Dulkian slaves from the ruling council, the council fall back on their default tactic and try and resolve the situation through diplomacy and procedure. Rago destroys one of the councillors to prove his point that in a war between singular aggression and pacifism, singular aggression wins outright.

Doctor Who has often been a battleground between science and superstition, with science often winning. However, the programme has also seen a few debates between pacifism and aggression. One would expect that, in a programme whose hero is dedicated to pacifism, that this would be the prevailing theme behind the entire show, but it is often the case that even the most peace loving of races and species encountered by The Doctor are forced to fight at some point. Often, it is The Doctor himself, or more often, his companions who convince those who wish to live in peace that they need to fight to survive (the most famous example of this, of course, occurs in The Daleks). Looking ahead 40 years to Davros's words in Journey's End, and we see that those words often due ring true. But more about that another day...

TT3 - The Dominators 3

Fewer scenes with Quarks + fewer scenes with bickering Dominators + more dull scenes with Dulkian politicians = a much more boring episode than the first two in this story.

There's also a great deal of padding regarding scenes set in, and involving, the transport rockets that everyone on Dulkis seems so fond. The Doctor and Jamie fly from the island to the capital to find Zoe and Cully, only to learn that Zoe and Cully have returned to the island from the capital by travel rocket, which means that a frustrated Doctor and Jamie now have to return to the island. It's right around this episode that Derrick Sherwin and a young Terrance Dicks started taking over the writing duties after finding fault in the original scripts written by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln. One must wonder if Sherwin and Dicks were trying to come to terms with the story during this episode, as the plot doesn't move along a great deal.

The original theme of this story, as intended by Haisman and Lincoln, was to show the inadequacies of a truly pacifist society. Although this was toned down considerably in the final version, elements of it are still present. Look how, among the work party, only the headstrong Cully and non-Dulkian Zoe are still fit for work after just a short time, while Balan, Kando, and Teel, the typical Dulkians, have passed out due to exhaustion. Translation: hippies are no good at working. Which side of the anti-war protests do you think Haisman and Lincoln were on back in 1968?

TT2 - The Dominators 2

The fun continues. I love how The Doctor and Jamie constantly dupe the Dominators into thinking that they're not smart, and thus, not dangerous, by doing poorly at the tests that the Dominators have arranged. The situation allows for many a great comedy moment, and Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines, who have had a couple of years under their belts together on the show, have the perfect comedy timing to pull these scenes off effortlessly.

More (unintentional, I'm sure) fun occurs thanks to Toba and his army of Quarks. I mentioned how in Episode One that Toba and Rago are like bickering spouses. In Episode Two, though, with Rago constantly berating, correcting, and scolding Toba, the relationship veers between that of a overbearing spouse and a battered spouse, to an overbearing parent and his disgruntled teenage son. Case in point - the cliffhanger to Episode Two. After two entire episodes of being belligerently instructed not to waste the Quarks' energy on wanton destruction, nor wasting possible slave labour resources in the form of the Dulkins, Toba orders the destruction of the first building he comes across, gleefully shouting "Destroy! Destroy!" like a petulant five year old smashing an ant hill out of existence.

Finally, Cully and Zoe seem to be getting along far too well, or, at least, it seems Cully wants it that way. In almost every scene in this episode, Cully runs off camera, hand in hand with Zoe, and, in one instance, wants her out of her Space Wheel clothes and into a proper Dulkian skirt. Either he's looking to settle down with Zoe (and the naive girl isn't doing much to thwart this notion), or else he's just looking for company to the misery that is wearing a Dulkian skirt himself. I'm leaning towards the latter.

TT1 - The Dominators 1

The Gunfighters is easily my biggest guilty pleasure from the William Hartnell era. The Dominators might qualify for that title for the Troughton era, at least based on the first episode. It starts off hilariously well when Dominator Rago storms out of the Dominator ship, followed shortly by his subordinate, Dominator Toba. Both men bark orders and observations at each other while standing far apart and facing away from each other. They've clearly just had a fight. They must be on vacation.

Then we're introduced to some thrill seeking adventurers on a day trip to the Island of Death. One of their number is a young Malcolm Terris, who would gain fame 11 years later for splitting his pants while being shot by a ballet dancer who is dressed as a pantomime bull. Fortunately, he doesn't have any pants to split in this short appearance because he, like all males on Dulkis, it would appear, wear skirts with an empire waist. The women don't look much better. But the thrill seekers at least look pretty cool when they get wasted by some Quarks.

Ah, yes, the Quarks. The successor to the Daleks, the producers of Doctor Who had hoped at the time. Pity they're so adorable, so immobile, so unintelligible. Can anyone understand what they're saying at the end of the episode?

Whatever. I had a blast watching this episode. I also love how The Doctor makes Jamie blow up a beach ball, the latter clearly having never seen one before. Bring on Episode Two!

SS6 - The Wheel in Space 6

Zoe joining The Doctor on his travels is mildly disturbing, only because she tells no one on the Wheel that she's leaving. Do you think she even sends a letter after she leaves? A message in a bottle? A text message? Most of the other companions we've seen join the TARDIS over the years have had all their family and/or friends slaughtered before their very eyes, which is horrific for the companion, but it did save a lot of awkward questions.

Zoe is one of the first companions who would appear to be missed, as she seemed well liked around the Wheel (if seen as a little robotic). Mind you, the crew gets over the deaths of their controller, their chief medical officer, and a good few crew members relatively quickly. Can death be such a common occurrence on a space research station? It's enough for Tanya Lernov and Leo Ryan to find the time for some cuddling.

The Cybermen are dispatched rather easily and, in a purely visual sense, entirely unconvincingly. And why do they look so funny while walking in space? And what, exactly, are they walking on when they're walking in space? Space?

The Patrick Troughton era hasn't had many low points, and although The Wheel in Space is clearly veering towards the end of not being terribly good, at least it's still not terrible.

SS5 - The Wheel in Space 5

The Cybermens' plan in this story is remarkable. Most alien races intent on taking over a space station would usually form an army, attack the base (especially when they clearly outflank the station in technology and strength, which the Cybermen clearly are), mop up the survivors, put up some new wallpaper, and take control.

But not these Cybermen. First, they create a supernova to fling meteorites across space (if you're starting your plan with something as complex as engineering a supernova, you know you've got your work cut out for you). The meteorites are headed towards the Wheel, so, naturally, the station will have to defend itself with its laser gun. What does the laser gun need for power? Bernalium. So, the Cybermen somehow smuggle some Cybermats aboard to discreetly destroy the Wheel's bernalium stocks. But, lo! There is some more bernalium on board a mysterious rocket which is floating towards the Wheel. So, the Cybermen (all two of them) hide in a crate of bernalium in the rocket, the same rocket that, were it not for Jamie's sabotage of the laser gun in Episode Two, would have been blasted out of the sky before the Cyberman plan even got off the ground.

Mental. The Cyberplanner is clearly doing its best to earn its paycheque. Future Cyber-invasions would dispense with the middle man, though. Pity, that, because despite the over complexity of the plan, the Cyberplanner doesn't half try.

SS4 - The Wheel in Space 4

Is it a bad sign that I've fallen sleep twice while trying to watch this episode? I don't think I'm really that bored while watching it. Perhaps it's because the Cybermen's plan of taking over the Space Wheel is taking forever to be put into action.

That's not surprising, given the complexity of the devious Cyber-scheme. From rockets to crates to eggs, all containing Cybermen, to Cybermats to humans controlled by Cybermen, etc., it's taking a while to get to the real lynch pin of the Cyber-plan. Not even the Cyber Planner is giving us a clue as to what's going. (You know what my favourite thing about writing reviews of Cybermen stories? Affixing the "Cyber-" prefix to all sorts of words. It's Cyber-riffic!)

Meanwhile, Jarvis, the head of the wheel, is quickly going nuts. Does he have space sickness, it is queried? More importantly, what is space sickness? Is it similar to the "space madness" experienced by Ren in the Ren and Stimpy episode of the same name? Only time will tell...

Pleasingly, the horribly annoying qualities of the character of Zoe are quickly being deflated as Zoe raises doubts about her logical and clinical outlook on life. She just might make a good potential companion after all.

SS3 - The Wheel in Space 3

In which the Cybermen finally reveal themselves properly, The Doctor finally wakes up from his slumber, and, most importantly to me, after thirteen straight episodes, the pictures finally move thanks to Episode Three existing in its entirety in the BBC Archives.

The Cybermen have been changed yet again after the relative stability of their appearance in the last two stories. The overall result isn't as impressive as the Moonbase/Tomb versions (and, with only two properly functioning Cybermen costumes, the ability to create memorable images of marauding Cyber armies is severely diminished), but perhaps by favourite Cyber-quirk are the little "teardrops" at the corners of each eye and, for this story only, under the mouth. It almost gives the Cybermen a sense of melancholy in their motives. They attempt to conquer others because they are sad that they have no longer have a home. That First Doctor - what a bastard!

The Second Doctor, on the other, is as mobile in this episode as he was in the last one, but at least he's awake now and participating in the plot. He even acquires his pseudonym of John Smith during this story. But he doesn't even get out of bed for the entire episode! Quite amazing is the breadth of Troughton's Doctor that he can still provide the story its necessary thrust by just sitting up. Tom Baker would be jealous.

SS2 - The Wheel in Space 2

Just like The Web of Fear a couple stories back, The Wheel in Space staggers a bit in momentum thanks to the vacation of Patrick Troughton. (Just how many vacations does he get? It's becoming as bad as John Wiles-era William Hartnell). Instead of involving our main character in the story, we have to lay him up in a bunk or a hospital bed for an entire episode while we are slowly introduced to the (surprise) multicultural crew of an isolated station about to come under attack by an alien force.

One of the crew members that we meet is the librarian, Zoe, who is about to become the new female companion on the show. The recipe for Zoe's character combines precisely the worst aspects of companions from the years to come. She's a know-it-all smartass like K-9, a young genius like Adric, and utterly humourless and logical like Nyssa. Zoe is a disaster waiting to happen. Why, then, does she (eventually) succeed in becoming a particularly memorable companion? Is it Wendy Padbury's acting ability? Her character development? That shot from The Mind Robber?

If I'm making this story out to be less than stellar, it really isn't that bad, mostly because I have a penchant for stories set in space stations or space ships. When I was a kid, and I wanted to build my own Doctor Who adventures out of Lego, spaceships would be the easiest to build. Cybermen, on the other hand, were difficult to realize, mostly because I had to wrap up Lego minifigures in tin foil and sticky tape. Fitting, that, as it's how the real ones were made, too...