Doctor Who Reverse the Polarity - An Analysis Of The Pertwee Era
Part Three - Season 9
We are now halfway through our analysis of the Pertwee era. By the time you come to Doctor Who in 1972, you have an audience which is well established with the Doctor and his new life on Earth, UNIT as a supporting role, and the UNIT Family.
So we go into Season 9 with a familiar background. The season broadcast on BBC One from the 1st of January to 24th of June 1972.
The first serial of the season 'Day of the Daleks', saw the return of the Daleks for the first time since 1967. This was also the first time that the Daleks appeared in colour in the television series.
DAY OF THE DALEKS
New Year's Day in 1972 was particularly exciting if you were a Doctor Who fan. Not only was your favourite series returning for its ninth season but the Daleks were also back for the first time in five years, and in colour as well.
The last time the Daleks had appeared in Doctor Who at that time was The Evil of the Daleks, a Second Doctor story from 1967. In that story, viewers had witnessed the final end of the creatures, or so we thought. But the Daleks are just too good, they're too headline grabbing to stay hidden forever. So the production team decided to launch Jon Pertwee's third season with their much publicised return.
Day of the Daleks had a specially shot television trailer featuring Daleks by the Thames plus an illustrated Radio Times cover, and if you were lucky enough to enter a competition inside the magazine, you could win your very own Dalek.
All this excitement could not have masked the fact that there were only three Dalek props available for the production. Two grey and black Daleks, and a Gold and Black Supreme Dalek. And with all the best will in the world, it was always going to be difficult to stage a convincing and epic full-on Dalek attack on Auderly House at the end of the fourth episode with only three Daleks.
At the beginning, Day of the Daleks didn't actually start off with having the Daleks in it at all. It started out as a Ghost story, concerning people from the future travelling back in time to prevent something from happening in their past. With a working title of "The Ghost Hunters" and "Years of Doom" and the serial revolved around the Ogrons instead of the Daleks, the Ogrons being these troll like dim aliens that were brutish and strong but not very intelligent.
The original plan was to bring the Daleks back at the end of the season in a story called "The Daleks In London" by Robert Sloman. The production was dropped when the production team realised that the series didn't have the hook that it needed to draw in viewers like The Doctor's introduction in Season 7 and The Master for Season 8. As well as that Sloman's script was all to similar to The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Instead writer Louis Marks was asked to alter his script to include the Daleks.
Osterley Park was originally proposed as the setting and location for Day of the Daleks. The name was changed to Auderly House in the final production.
Jon Pertwee in his words 'never liked the Daleks'. He thought they were limited in their ability to do things and he couldn't understand their popularity.
However, he would concede that the publicity which followed the announcement of their return to the series by Barry Letts "was perhaps worth my biting my lip". On the other hand, he enjoyed working with the story's guest cast.
He also liked the Ogrons, as unlike the Daleks, their design allowed the actors' mouths and lips to be seen and thus he felt allowed the actors playing them to "come to grips" with their characters and "with an entire range of expressions available" make the viewers believe in their performance.
Pertwee also recalled he persuaded Barry Letts to include the trikes seen in the story, reflecting his love of vehicles. However he considered the chase sequence involving them to be "one of the more dangerous stunts that I had insisted on doing" during his time on the series.
Terry Nation, who penned the first story The Daleks in 1963, was given an on-screen credit at the end of all four episodes of this story as having originated them. The production team only had three Dalek props available for use during the production of this serial, so only three Daleks appear on screen at any one time. One of the Daleks is painted gold, so only two regular casings are seen in shot. Film editing is used to attempt the illusion of more than three Daleks. The final battle at Auderly House was disliked by viewers, as it was quite obvious that only three Daleks were attacking. From a production side of things it does look very lack lustre in terms of scale and special effects.
What's more shocking then that is how unrealistic the Daleks sound. They just sound really weird in how they talk, they talk like robots. It is an assumption that if the actors believed that if they talked into the microphones it would modify their voices to make them sound like Daleks, and what makes the Daleks an apposing threat is quite largely down to the voice because if you actually look at the Dalek in its form, it's not very frightening at all. A good Dalek, i.e what makes the Daleks a great monster is that sense of mystery and voice adds to that. These voices don't make the Daleks come across as threatening much.
The merits of what makes Day of the Daleks not only a great season opener but a great story in general is it achieves what other science fiction stories can not. It is a time paradox story done well.
You have the gorillas who are meant to be the good guys, they go back in time to prevent a terrible future from happening but instead are the ones who made it happen and they're caught in a temporal causality loop. Brilliant. They are ones who caused it.
Interestingly as well, it involves time travelling into the future without the TARDIS, true the visual effects are a bit naff and if done today, Day of the Daleks would look a lot more visually striking and effective with the CGI opportunities available, but the production does the best that it can.
Another interesting thing this story brings to light is the Doctor's taste in cheese and wine. We do have to remember that Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor was indeed a character in relation to his two predecessors. He was an Edwardian gent in the 70's, and a representation of heroes of that period if you think of things like 'The Avengers' for example. So it was written into his character that he liked a glass of wine while enjoying a cheese board. That's regeneration for you. If the shape of your nose is going to change, perhaps your tastes change as well when you regenerate.
THE CURSE OF PELADON
Ever since the Daleks first hit our TV screens in 1963, Doctor Who has delivered a succession of alien races to thrill and excite its viewers. It is perhaps strange then that the Doctor so rarely encounters more than one species at any one time.
The Curse of Peladon is a rare treat, presenting a menagerie of monsters old and new. And like the diverse range of aliens it showcases, this is a multi-faceted adventure which defies expectation at every turn.
A motley collection of creatures find themselves thrust into a murder mystery in a medieval, claustrophobic setting which envois Shakespearean tragedy rather than space opera. But as the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that it is far more than an alien whodunnit, setting religion and tradition against science and progress, and in its wider context, it is a cheeky political allegory, made at a time when the UK was on the verge of joining the EEC after twelve years of negotiations.
Ultimately this is a very personal story, exploring the dilemmas of a young King facing critical state issues and struggling to balance duty, friendship, and love. By placing human emotions and motives at the heart of the story, Brian Hayles enjoys the uncommon luxury of allowing his aliens to become personalities in their own right rather than merely ciphers for evil.
Working titles for this story included "The Curse" and "Cure of the Peladons". Featured the return of the Ice Warriors, a popular monster from the Patrick Troughton years, like Day of the Daleks, Curse of Peladon was the Ice Warriors first story in colour and rather surprisingly they are not made out to be the bad guys, even though the Doctor suspects them as being so from the start. So they're not really a villain in this.
David Troughton who plays King Peladon in this, is Patrick Troughton's son had previously appeared in Doctor Who as a guard in 'The Enemy of the World' and Private Moor in 'The War Games', Curse of Peladon is his third Doctor Who. He would later appear in 'Midnight' with David Tennant's doctor.
In summery, changing both the Doctor's prejudices and our own, The Curse of Peladon dares to defy the traditional narrative where the bug eyed monster is always the bad guy.
THE SEA DEVILS
Malcome Hulke's sequel to 1970's Doctor Who and the Silurians reworks the same ethical issues, and although The Sea Devils may lack the moral depth and bleak nature of its predecessor, it compensates with extensive location work, ambitious action sequences, and some enthusiastic support from the Royal Navy.
Replaying the ancient-reptiles attempt to reclaim Earth scenario repeats the intrinsic dilemma: which race is demonstrably more deserving of our sympathies, and can the Doctor broker a peace before it is too late.
In one of the great iconic moments from the history of the series, a Sea Devil rises from the water and advance up the beach at the end of Episode Three. Unfortunately, as a race they remain mostly muted lacking intelligent motivation, and are ultimately portrayed as rather unsympathetic cannon fodder.
The generosity of the Navy affords some praise to the production and a succession of impressive dramatic opportunities both on land and at sea, and although UNIT are conspicuous by their absence, the cast of the Navy characters and supporting extras really do compensate the narrative.
Ultimately thought it's the Master that steals the show, Roger Delgado is stirring up the inter-species aggression and exploiting human weakness as the evil rebal time lord, after the events that has happened in The Daemons, The Master is sent to live out the remainder of his days in prison, the story begins with the Doctor and Jo on their way to visit him. The prison visit scene grants a tantalising hint of the Master's history with the Doctor, and he is by turns utterly charming, blithely deceitful, deliciously ironic and, in the closing moments, unexpectedly mischievous.
An action-packed yarn with sword fights and submarines, mine fields, and mind games, and featuring some intriguing insights into the Doctor's relationship with the Master, The Sea Devils is quintessential Pertwee.
THE MUTANTS
The Mutants is the penultimate story of Doctor Who's ninth season and is a good example of a script that reflects social and political issues of its time.
Writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin, who wrote The Claws of Axos the previous year, submitted an idea for a story about colonial oppression on an alien planet, and eventually developed the story along with script editor Terrance Dicks.
Originally called 'Independence', the anti-apartheid themes are clear from the start. Trips to murky alien planets like Solos were a rare treat during the early 1970's and this is the third time since he had been exiled to Earth that the Time Lords send the Doctor on a special mission, a particularly handy plot device that gets the TARDIS into time and space and away from Earth-based stories featuring the UNIT family.
The atmospheric location filming includes scenes shot in the Chislehurst Caves in Kent. These man made caves, which made for chalk and flint in the 13th century, provide a suitably eerie setting for the caves on Solos. The planet's surface is also filmed in Kent, in what was Western Quarry in Northfleet.
The mutant monsters of the story's title are well realised and nightmarish in appearance. Although the Mutt creatures never returned for another Doctor Who story, a slightly altered Mutt does make an appearance at the beginning of "The Brain of Morbius".
THE TIME MONSTER
The Time Monster offers up the Third Doctor's first Earth based historical adventure, with Atlantis playing a key role in the central storyline.
Representing Doctor Who at perhaps its most eccentric, with a rampaging half-man/ half bird, a rapidly ageing science assistant and a time travel device known rather amusingly as TOMTIT, The Time Monster certainly doesn't lack imagination.
Worthy of note is the stylistic technique in which we alternate between the real time story itself and the events happening in Atlantis, thus helping give both scale and depth to the adventure.
There's also the welcome return of The Master, last seen in the Sea Devils, faking a heart attack and escaping on a rescue hovercraft. The character's involvement us one of the main factors in the story's success, which heralds Roger Delgado's penultimate appearance in the role.
This story sees a redesign of the TARDIS interior. Producer Barry Letts was unhappy with the redesign. The set was damaged shortly after recording on this particular serial wrapped and, as a result, was discarded.
Although The Time Monster may not be oft-cited as a fan favourite, the six part story attempts to overcome its ambitious plot points with relentless determination and drive, and in doing so provides throughly entertaining story telling.
This brings my analysis of Season 9 to a close, join me next time where I will continue my analysis of the Pertwee Era with Season 10.
