It’s probably quite a close run thing as to which story has been written about more, “An Unearthly Child” or “The Dead Planet” (it’s my blog, they’re the names I’m using), Justifiably, for the second story, everyone writes about the superb design, probably the most convincingly alien city seen in the 60 years of the show, the beyond brilliant design of the daleks (and the associated behind the scenes wrangles) and the wonderful sound design. Which is a shame, as it means all I’m left to write about is the continuing weirdness of TARDIS life, the smallest handwriting in the universe and a tatty piece of cord that’s been laying around for ages. Yes, step forward Mr Terry Nation because you managed to write a story where you got paid for old rope 😀
Let’s start with the TARDIS, as that’s going to be very much an ongoing narrative through this blog. I would describe it as the one constant thing through the 60+ years of Doctor Who but yeah, we’re on our second story and the Doctor’s already changed the function of some of the controls compared to the previous story. There is, however, one thing on the console that seems to make vaguely logical sense in this story. On the side of the console that’s nearest the internal doors is the radiation meter. Its function is to not do anything till everyone’s back is turned and then jump to the danger level. Now, as a scientist (yes, 100% honest) I’ve got a few questions/serious concerns. First off, call me a bit paranoid, but when working with radiation I prefer not to have a scale that is seemingly safe for 95% of it and then flashing neon red for the rest. As a scientist I’d like to have something that starts at “safe”, works through “look, go out if you want to but don’t linger”, passes through “Why don’t you try somewhere else” and THEN gets all flashing. It’s all very well labelling that last bit as “danger” but what sort of danger are we talking about? The “you’re safe for a few hours” level, the “were you planning on having kids” level or “you can fry an egg on a nearby rock” level? I’m also very traditional in that I like my warnings to be unmissable. When we get to stories like “The Mind Robber” we discover that the TARDIS can get very enthusiastic about its bleeps to warn of imminent danger… so why on Gallifrey would you make a silent radiation warning system? Or is that what the filament was for that the Doctor was planning on installing? You’d think an “are you really sure you want to open the doors and go outside” recorded message could be played. Mind you, looking ahead to various stories (Pertwee and Tennant era in particular) the show has a very varying attitude towards just how dangerous radiation actually is. Perhaps this meter is doing a Hartnell, it’s completely forgotten its lines and so has to wait for some sort of prompt to remind it to flash. Still, its complete inability to warn anyone with a short attention span will make for interesting drama.
Still with the TARDIS but moving on to the first of the two most common bits used in the control room… the scanner. Now, time for a “new” theory. Over the years it’s been assumed that the scanner is somehow located in the light fitting on the top of the Police Box. Yes, this makes sense. Sort of. In “The Dead Planet” we have the crew all looking up at the monitor as it slowly pans around to show the petrified forest (and the terrified vision mixer who has to cut away just before it shows the edge of the set). This means that we can add an auto pan mode to what will be quite a long list of functions. BUT, in our previous exciting adventure, when the ship took off in rocket mode, we saw the tops of the houses and buildings beneath us. So, the new theory (and yes, it’s a simple one, I’m saving the complicated ones till further down the line) is that the TARDIS actually has more than one scanner and the ship’s AI/spirit or whatever you want to call it, simply picks what it thinks is the most logical one for that particular moment. This will help next season when we get to “The Web Planet” and oh boy that’s got a huge amount of TARDIS stuff in to unpick. And yes, I know there are damn good technical reasons why in the 1960s on a budget of two and six they didn’t do more with the scanner but surely a race as supposedly as intelligent and nit picky as the Time Lords would put a “yes it looks pretty but it’s highly radioactive” icon on the screen? And is the petrified forrest actually in various shades of fallout grey, which is why Barbara fails to notice the lack of colour?
The last piece of TARDIS weirdness (for this story at least) isa return to the number one function we see through the show… the doors. If “An Unearthly Child” hadn’t set in place the seemingly dimensionally surreal nature of the doors, then “The Dead Planet” would take the credit as the “awww bugger, we didn’t think this through” moment. Again, it’s down to budget, set design etc but as it’s on screen sadly it needs to be mentioned. When Susan returns to the TARDIS to collect the Thal drugs (which I’ll comment on shortly), there’s a rather lovely violent (and dry) thunderstorm going on. It’s atmospheric, it builds the tension and then, just as she’s about to go back out to the outside world and to the city there’s a cliffhanger signalling final flash of lightning. Which, unfortunately, lights up every single roundel on the wall containing the double doors. So not only are they double doors on the inside but a single one outside, the implication is that actually that whole wall is the outside of the ship and that the police box is some sort of illusion (which is fine till you see someone walk round the police box and not slam into a twenty foot wide illusion). There are plenty of other weird TARDIS bits in this story but I’ll refer back to them later, through the years, rather than do a zillion throw-forwards now. Especially not as my science brain wants to scream….
“Seriously??? You find a box of medicine that a totally alien race has left for you and it just so happens to be perfect for your own body which is a neat trick given your crew is made up of two different races anyway????”
and breathe
I can’t blame Terry Nation for it to be honest, as with so much of Doctor Who it’s an established fact taken from nearly all science fiction that medicine is always one hundred percent compatible between alien races (until the plot demands otherwise). It just raises so many questions about the biology of Thals when compared to the biology of humans and Time Lords that you do have to question if there isn’t some sort of common ancestor in the very dim and distant past which is why Earth, Gallifrey and Skaro seem to be the three most important planets in the universe. Except, is it even a medicine? When the daleks take it and give it to the workers in sector three (did they draw the dalek equivalent of a short straw?), it turns out the drug actually does psychotic things to the daleks (worryingly believable) and then, somehow, that spreads to daleks elsewhere in the city. Ummmm okay, so is this some sort of space medicine © Terry Nation that spreads psychically through a species? Is this some sort of clue that the daleks have some sort of telepathic/psychic link between each other? Or is it, as always, Terry Nation not having a single clue about science (fiction or otherwise) and just taking the money and running? The whole dalek city (population, about half a dozen to maybe ten at most it seems) is just weird. The story can’t seem to decide which bits are on the surface and which are several miles underground and I, therefore, can’t work out how the hell there’s even radiation allegedly in the city if it’s under several miles of rock! And, now we come to it, don’t the daleks seem to think that the radiation level in the outside world is falling quite rapidly? Had the TARDIS turned up a few days later it looks like there might never have been a radiation problem for the crew to deal with in the first place. In the final climactic battle, we have Thals descending into the room on ropes that errrrrr drop through convenient holes in the ceiling so that they can make macho entrances like the SAS. Except I thought that this room was part of the deep underground bit and so just how long were those ropes to begin with??? It was the 60s, everyone was obsessed with radiation (understandably) and how horrid it was. It’s therefore a real pity that (puts science hat on again), the radiation that’s left after a neutron bomb goes off REALLY doesn’t hang around long. Neutrons have a stupidly short half life when not contained within a nucleus so, in the spirit of how the TARDIS translates universe, galaxy and constellation in wildly inaccurate ways, realistically we need to tell ourselves it’s space radiation © Terry Nation and the TARDIS just went “Not got a clue, I’ll just give it a name and nope no one notices” in its translation.
And finally for today, yes the Thals. Now, I don’t know about you, but I want to see what this particular group of Thals left behind to make this journey. As is alway the case in science fiction, after a perilous and tough journey on foot across rough terrain, the women still have perfect makeup and there’s not a trace of mud on anyone (and their playboy bunny inspired costumes are immaculate still). And yes, those clothes, just how did the Thals make those clothes? You see, for me, this is the sort of thing I’d love to find out more about somehow. How long have “leather trousers with weird holes that just about show your underwear” been in fashion? What are they made of? Does this imply that the Thals have a society with money or does everyone just get a fresh pair free every few weeks? Clearly they aren’t from the skin of the metal monster in the forest so what animal died to make them? Was it edible? Are there tailor-Thals? If, as is suggested, the Thal cloak is a man made material, are there chemical factories somewhere on the planet making roll upon roll of the material? And if those trousers and tit-covering tops are just every day wear, what the hell do the kinky Thals wear? Of course, this kind of thing isn’t ever covered because they have a five part story to tell (what do you mean I’ve got to make it last seven weeks? Oh I’ll just pad out the chasm jumping bits and kill off a dumb Thal for no reason at all) and this sort of thing would slow it down but it does, in my mind, raise all kinds of weird and wonderful questions. Oh and just how old and valuable is that dalek sculpture that gets thrown down the lift? Then there’s the mystery history box. That contains five hundred thousand years of history on about 6 stone tablets and maybe the odd piece of parchment. If it was some sort of portable internet type set up, where there was a view screen and the ability to bring things up on screen (what do you mean there weren’t tablet computers to borrow the design from back then?) I could quite happily believe half a million years of history could be casually slung over your shoulder but given that there seems to be an entire polygon stone devoted to just one image… okay, I’ll be generous? It’s digital stone and the image changes when errrrr we press a button on the underside edge. The edge we can’t see. Cos it’s pointing at a different camera. Honest.
“The Dead Planet” is a dalek story like no other, the whole race is going to get a reboot pretty much every time they appear on screen but this first appearance is the one my mind wishes we could have seen more of before the “oh they’re just evil with no history of anything but evil” re-write. Somewhere, back in the dawn of time, this story suggests there’s dalek poetry and dalek artwork. They seemingly still rely on growing food, so there are dalek chefs and some very fed up dalek janitors who haven’t had to sweep up this many duff daleks bits in centuries. And, most of all, it made me want to know what all the other daleks do in the city every day, whilst the science daleks try to decide what to do about the magic radiation. Perhaps they look longingly at the furniture in the prison cells and get nostalgic for the time that they actually had legs (I’m guessing all the furniture we see is just a very well preserved leftover from before the war). And then, after checking the dalek city for radiation leaks, the Doctor just buggers off as he never interferes and takes his specimens with him. There doesn’t seem to be much regret about having been involved in a genocidal war. You have to wonder though, in the context of this story (and just this story), the actions that would have wiped the Thals out were decided upon by about three or four daleks. Were ALL the daleks that bad? Somewhere, deep in the city, was there a group of peacenik daleks, writing anti-war poetry and exterminating their draft cards? Taken as a one off story and not the start of 60 years of repetitive plots, this is a tale that could get very dark if you actually stop and think about it. Perhaps that’s why the TARDIS is so angry it tries to blow the Doctor up at the first chance it gets (then tries to freeze him).
Next time, “The Edge of Destruction” and hopefully the answer to a 60 year old mystery. Yes, I’m going to try and explain what it’s all about…