Episode 133: The Tenth Planet (3)

Synopsis:

As General Cutler absorbs the news that his son is now in orbit in the Zeus 5 capsule, a radar technician announces that a huge fleet of Cyberman spaceships is approaching the Earth...

Cutler orders scientist Dyson to contact his son in the Zeus 5, just as the Doctor suddenly collapses. Ben and Polly are told to take him to the crew room.

Terry Cutler is notified that he will no longer be rendezvousing with Zeus 4, and is advised to keep an eye out for the Cyberman fleet which should be in a lower orbit. Cutler assures him that he will bring him down safely - no matter the cost.

Ben and Polly return to the tracking room to hear that the General plans to destroy Mondas. Snowcap Base is one of the sites where the powerful Z-Bomb is housed.

Barclay is horrified as this weapon could damage the Earth with radiation due to the proximity of the two worlds. Cutler admits the risk, but dismisses it as potentially affecting only the side of the Earth facing Mondas. 

He contacts Wigner in Geneva and seeks permission to use the Z-Bomb, but this is explicitly refused due to the dangers mentioned by Barclay. However, the bureaucrat does allow Cutler to use any means necessary to defend against the Cybermen - little realising that the General will twist this to mean deployment of the Z-Bomb. Barclay, Ben and Polly realise that the base commander is becoming mentally unbalanced, due to his obsession with saving his son.

When it becomes clear that he intends to launch the weapon, as Mondas directly threatens the Earth, Ben tries to tell him that the Doctor thought otherwise. He claimed that Mondas was more at risk from Earth than the other way round, due to its energy-draining. He had advised patience.

Cutler refuses to heed this advice and begins the launch preparations.

Polly is asked by Ben to start working on Barclay, to get him on their side.

Sure enough, he is so opposed to the Z-Bomb use that he agrees to help them sabotage the launch.

The radar technician reports another landing nearby of a Cyberman spaceship. The three weapons earlier captured from Krail and his fellow Cybermen are taken outside by a squad of soldiers who conceal themselves in the snow. As a group of Cybermen emerge out of the blizzard, they are ambushed with their own weaponry and most are destroyed, with the survivors retreating back to their craft.

Barclay has sent Ben through a ventilation shaft from the crew room to the missile silo, with instructions on how to sabotage the weapon in such a way as it will take a long time to trace and put right.

Cutler becomes suspicious and goes to the silo room in time to catch Ben tampering with the device. He pushes him and he falls from a gantry, leaving him stunned.

He is brought to the tracking room as the missile countdown begins - with the General threatening to kill him and Barclay if anything goes wrong.

Polly desperately asks Ben if he succeeded in his mission, but he is still confused from his injury. He simply cannot recall. 

The countdown reaches zero and the rockets fire...

Data:

Written by Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis

Recorded: Saturday 1st October 1966 - Riverside Studio 1

First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 22nd October 1966

Ratings: 7.6 million / AI 48

Designer: Peter Kindred

Director: Derek Martinus

Additional cast: Callen Angelo (Terry Cutler), Christopher Dunham (R/T technician)

Critique:

After completing his scripts for the first two episodes, Kit Pedler was taken seriously ill in the summer of 1966 - necessitating surgery and a hospital stay. Gerry Davis was very busy at the time working on both The Smugglers and the story which would launch the new Doctor - then known as "The Destiny of Doctor Who". He had already been guiding Pedler through his contributions, and so it was decided that he would complete Hartnell's final adventure himself - for which he had to get special permission, being the series' Story Editor. He would be entitled to split the fee with Pedler as well as be given on-screen credit for his work. 

This was discussed with Pedler, who agreed to the arrangement. He was able to inform Davis of his ideas for the remaining two instalments, though it was up to the Story Editor how much of this he could use.

It was also agreed at this time that Pedler and Davis would enjoy shared copyright of the Cybermen.

During the summer break Hartnell had suffered bouts of ill health. On completing recording of the second episode of his final story, the star was struck down by bronchitis. His doctor prescribed a week's rest along with his antibiotics, and so he would be unable to attend rehearsals for the next instalment which commenced two days later. The Doctor would have to be written out of the episode.

Having been forced to pen the episode himself, it now fell to Davis to make the necessary adaptations to cover Hartnell's absence.

The Doctor simply falls unconscious at the beginning of the episode, and his exposition is split between Ben and Barclay. It is noticeable that Ben speaks of things which the Doctor is supposed to have said - such as the danger to Mondas and the call for restraint - when he has never been heard to say any such thing, and there hasn't even been any opportunity to do so off-screen.

The consequences of using the Z-Bomb against Mondas and other scientific dialogue was given to Barclay.

As with the third episode of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, when Hartnell had been forced to miss a week through injury, a double would be employed, seen only from the back - their sole job being to fall over in the first shot. They would then remain unconscious off camera for the remainder of the episode.

Having already doubled for Hartnell in Cornwall for The Smugglers, and for the opening South Pole scenes at Ealing, Gordon Craig was hired to feature briefly at the start of the episode, collapsing in a faint. The Doctor is then taken to the crew room and spends the rest of the instalment under a blanket on a bunk bed.

As well as the dialogue changes, the initial draft of the third episode did not include Ben in the tracking room at the conclusion. The Doctor was to have felt ill throughout, and not played a significant role anyway. He was to have rested in the crew room for much of the instalment, only being brought back to the tracking room for the cliff-hanger.

The Cybermen did not feature at Riverside on the third studio day. The creatures appear in one sequence only, which was filmed at Ealing on Thursday 1st September.

This had been the first time that the actors had worked in the costumes, and many of the problems in doing so only became apparent this day.

Some fainted under the hot studio lights, and everyone needed help getting back up after falling in the ambush. As previously mentioned, the lamp on the top of the head was fitted with a bulb which was supposed to illuminate - but it blew on being switched on and the idea was quickly dropped.

Parts of the costume came loose, requiring running repairs from Sandra Reid and her assistant.

A BBC photographer was present on the day to record the activity. It was on this occasion that all of the group shots of the Cybermen in the snow were taken. The chap on the right, above, wearing glasses, is director Derek Martinus.

The three actors who would be playing the Cybermen in studio were amongst the group - Reg Whitehead, Harry Brooks and Gregg Palmer - and joining them for filming only were John Slater, Bruce Wells, John Haines, and John Knott.

Model filming depicting the raising of the Z-Bomb rocket took place two days earlier, Tuesday 30th August, also on Ealing's Stage 3.

During the rehearsal period, Martinus wrote to Hartnell wishing him a speedy recovery and informing him of how they had covered his absence.

One side effect of the changes made by Davis was the removal of a new scene for Glenn Beck as the TV News announcer. Instead, he and Roy Skelton - not needed for Cyber-voices - provided background vocals for the various intercom messages throughout the episode.

Skelton also provided the Z-Bomb countdown.

The studio day did not get off to a good start, as Martinus was angry with the state of the tracking room set. It had been transported to Alexandra Palace for storage as there was insufficient room at Riverside, and had been damaged at some point in transit.

Davis' name was misspelt in the opening credits.

The Zeus 4 set was reused as the Zeus 5 one. Callen Angelo, playing Cutler's astronaut son, was only ever seen in close-up on monitors to help disguise this.

The main new set was the multi-level rocket silo room, which included the wall-mounted grill which Ben had to crawl through.

Stuntman Peter Pocock doubled for Michael Craze in the sequence where Ben is knocked off the gantry by the General.

Recording breaks were mainly to allow cast members to move between the tracking room and silo sets, and to allow Craze to move along the ventilation shaft in close-ups.

Stock footage of rocket jets firing was used for the final scene, and countdown numerals were superimposed over the Snowcap crewmembers.

The Tenth Planet very much provides the blueprint for the "base under siege" story structure, which will come to prominence in the Troughton era of the programme. We have the small group of people - generally scientists rather than trained soldiers, though there may be some of those to act as "red shirts". They are housed in a claustrophobic location, situated in a hostile environment - making simple escape impossible. To add to the drama, the person in command of this location is wholly unsuited to the role, suffering from some mental health issue - triggered by the alien threat or an existing condition which the situation exacerbates.

Cutler is clearly a hard taskmaster whom it is difficult to work with, and the nature of the remote and confined location is specifically mentioned in the first episode as the Sergeant explains how no-one works here for more than a few months at a time.

We've seen how ruthless the General can be when dealing with the Cybermen, but he totally flips when his son comes under threat. He is quite prepared to ignore a direct order - twisting Wigner's "any means necessary" to include the very thing he's been specifically told not to use. His planned actions can destroy a whole half of the earth at the very least, but he's single-mindedly fixated on saving his son. This can't all have come out of nowhere. Clearly Cutler must have already been suffering some kind of obsessive-compulsive behaviours prior to this, which his superiors really ought to have picked up on. People working in remote hostile environments would be getting psychological check-ups on a regular basis. 

Even if ISC were unaware of any of this, they ought to have known that sending into danger the son of the man responsible for dealing directly with an alien invasion would be a distraction at the very least, and the trigger for a complete mental breakdown at worst.

It may be a Cyberman story, but with this third episode Gerry Davis is more interested in telling a human story.

Trivia:

• The ratings see yet another significant increase of more than one million on the previous week. The appreciation figure remains constant and under 50, however.
• Bernard Hepton, who would go on to find fame in Colditz and Secret Army, was originally considered for the role of Dyson. When rewrites saw the part diminished, he was no longer interested.
• Cutler's son is named Terry in the credits and in various production documents - but it is never mentioned in dialogue.
• The script specified that Wigner should speak to one of his underlings in Greek, but actor Steve Plytas opted to use French instead.
• The forthcoming change in lead actor was reported in the US entertainment trade paper Variety on Wednesday 28th September. The piece mentioned how the Doctor's personality would change along with his appearance, and pointed out how successful the series had been so far in foreign sales.
• Michael Craze could be seen in the Wednesday Play series in the run-up to broadcast - in a comedy called A Piece of Resistance. This was actually a repeat, however, as it had debuted on BBC 2 on Boxing Day, 1965.
• The layout of the base has to be questioned, as it appears that there is a ventilation shaft leading directly from the crew room to the rocket silo - suggesting that anyone lying in bed during a launch would most likely be cremated...

The Art of... The Tenth Planet

Gerry Davis was the author for the novelisation of The Tenth Planet, having been its original co-writer. He had already penned the first of the Cybermen novelisations, based on The Moonbase.

Whilst Doctor Who and the Cybermen had been a fairly straightforward adaptation, for this book Davis elected to make a few changes.

He moved the date to 2000AD, and instead of an old Western it is a James Bond movie which Ben sees. The description of Roger Moore fighting in a kung-fu school lets us know that this is specifically 1974's The Man With The Golden Gun. He also changes the regeneration scene - with the Doctor taking to a bed-like device covered with a canopy - and adds the same "Origins of the Cybermen" prologue from his earlier book.

The cover is by Chris Achilleos, and actually featured in the first Doctor Who Monster Book some three months before the novel's release date.

The book was published in 1976. A reprint in 1978 used a blue logo, and amended the background to a simpler purple block, omitting the rays of light emanating from Mondas at the top of the artwork.

This was the first of the Target books not to have the Doctor's image on the cover. He is relegated to the back, as this was part of a short run of books to have additional artwork on the reverse.

The 2012 reissue - the one with the foreword by Tom MacRae - did away with a coloured background altogether, placing the Cybermen and planets against a plain white backing.

The book was reprinted again in 1993, this time with totally new artwork from Alister Pearson, and using the Oliver Elmes McCoy logo:

An image of Hartnell, based on a photo from The Celestial Toymaker, is flanked by a mirrored full length image of a Cyberman, with a portrait shot above the Doctor's head (taken from a telesnap from the cliff-hanger to the first episode).

The Tenth Planet was not released in VHS form until 2000, by which time they were using photomontage covers. Once again The Celestial Toymaker provides the Hartnell portrait, and the profile shot as used on the Achilleos cover is coupled with the full length photograph as used by Pearson to depict the Cybermen.

We have a wintry landscape, but whoever put the cover together seems to think that they have trees at the South Pole...

A video release had been planned earlier, which would have featured Michael Craze describing the events of the missing episode. This material was recorded - at the Museum of the Moving Image Behind the Sofa exhibition - but the release was then shelved when a rumour began to do the rounds that Part 4 was about to be returned to the archives.

Andrew Skilleter produced the above artwork for the abortive VHS. The Doctor image is taken from a photograph from The Web Planet, wearing his Atmospheric Density Jacket.

The story was released onto DVD, quite late in the range, in October 2013. The cover art comes courtesy of Lee Binding.

It was made available first as part of the "Regenerations" box-set, which included the surviving regeneration stories for every Doctor up to Tennant's first stint. The full length photo of a Cyberman is used once again, along with a mix from the Ealing filming.

The Region 1 release once again allows more of Binding's artwork (above) to be seen - whereas the Region 2 version is very cramped thanks to the roundel design which takes up the top third, and the various graphics.

Being only partially complete, The Tenth Planet had its soundtrack released as part of the BBC Radio Collection in January 2006. The linking narration was by Anneke Wills.

An overly cluttered photomontage cover includes images from other stories - Polly from The War Machines and the Doctor and Ben from The Smugglers. Our old friend the full length shot of the Cyberman in the snow, is there - with a weird tornado emanating from his gun - as is the profile image, top left. The cover is then padded out with more Cybermen from the Ealing filming. Cutler and the astronauts are somehow also squeezed in. Sometimes less really is more...

The novelisation was released as an audiobook in 2018. The reader is Anneke Wills again, and Nick Briggs provides the vocals for the Cybermen. (Personally, I prefer to hear the voices of the original TV versions of Daleks, Cybermen and Master in my head, so don't hold with this sort of over-writing of history).

For the cover, they have decided to use the later 1978 reprint version, with the solid purple backdrop at the top of the image.

Finally, the music from the B&W era has been released in different formats over the years, especially as Space Adventures Vols 1 & 2. In December 2002 a compilation of just over 13 minutes of the stock music from The Tenth Planet was released on the Ochre Records label. One of the group shots from Ealing provides the cover image.

Inspirations: The Angels Take Manhattan

The title probably derives from the Rogers & Hart song Manhattan, written in 1925. The original lyric read "We'll have Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island too..." but this was later amended to "I'll take Manhattan..." by some singers, such as Sinatra, and has sort of stuck.

To "take" a city means simply to become a success there - e.g. to become the most popular business. To take Broadway, for instance, meant to become its biggest star or to produce the top box office hit.

In 1987 Leonard Cohen released the song First We Take Manhattan, and the same year saw a soapy mini-series called I'll Take Manhattan.

The 1980's saw movies The Muppets Take Manhattan, and Friday 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, so it was definitely a relatively well known phrase by then.

Also, in 2011, Karen Gillan had starred as model Jean Shrimpton in the BBC4 biographical drama We'll Take Manhattan.

The episode was originally going to be the last of four new stories which would comprise the first half of Series 7, and see out Amy and Rory as companions.

Gillan was the first to inform Moffat that she wished to leave, but it transpired that Arthur Darvill was thinking along the same lines. They met with Moffat and planned when best to organise their final story. They both wished to leave in a manner which would preclude them coming back again later - so a clean break. neither wanted to come back, even in a cameo appearance (though Gillan did eventually record one scene for Matt Smith's final story). The writer had a year to plan their departure.

Inextricably linked to the Ponds, the story would definitely involve River Song.

Moffat later claimed that he rewrote the ending 20 times, unsure whether or not to actually kill the couple off.

One of his starting points was J M Barrie's Peter Pan - in that whilst Peter remained youthful, the people he knew would grew up. This had been addressed before by RTD in episodes such as School Reunion, when the Doctor had to explain what stopped him having a relationship with a human being.

The New York setting was inspired by a holiday there, during which Moffat and his family became snowbound. He and the regulars had enjoyed the city on promotional visits, and Darvill would later enjoy a successful Broadway stint.

The city was very much geared up to support filming for TV and cinema, and the production team were helped out by the US line producer who had assisted with the Utah shoot for Series 6.

Keen to use the Weeping Angels again in a big story, Moffat saw photographs of the Bethesda Fountain in Central park, which included cherubs - baby angels.

The fountain would feature in the episode itself, instrumental in Rory's temporal abduction to 1938.

(It also plays an iconic role in the 2003 HBO adaptation of Angels in America, based on the play by Tony Kushner).

The 1930's setting for the bulk of the story came from a love of film noir, with River's alter ego, Melody Malone, inspired by the "hard-boiled" private detective genre. 

Grayle was named after a character in Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely (1940). He was inspired by Sydney Greenstreet - the "Fat Man" in The Maltese Falcon (1941).

Sam Garner's name hints at Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade (played by Bogart in the above film), and actor James Garner (famed for portraying down-at-heel PI Jim Rockford).

Battery Park was an obvious choice for the location of the apartment block Winter Quay - as the building was being used by the Angels as a battery / storage unit for the potential energy of its captives.

In his script, Moffat stated that the gothic building should be like something out of Charles Addams (creator of The Addams Family), crossed with something from a David Lynch movie.

Despite being made of metal rather than stone, the Statue of Liberty is the most famous statue in the city - so it was inevitable that it would become a Weeping Angel.

It doesn't actually do anything, and the idea that it can cross the city seemingly unnoticed is daft, so its inclusion was purely to provide some iconic imagery for the episode.

The ancient Chinese sequence is set in the year 221 BC - a Sherlock Holmes in-joke. And the first chapter of the Melody Malone novel is "The Dying Detective" - another Holmes reference.

Next time: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

N is for... Nyder

Commander of the security force operating out of the special Military Elite bunker close to the Kaled city on Skaro. This was presided over by Davros, who had assembled a group of scientists to work on ways to win their millennia-old war with the Thals. Over time, Davros had come more and more to concentrate on the eventual genetic evolution of his people, recognising the damage done from the centuries of atomic and chemical warfare. This had led him to develop the Daleks.

Nyder was fiercely loyal to him and acted as his personal assistant and confidante. Only he was party to Davros' plans, and knew the combination to his wall-safe.

Part of his role was to monitor the scientific and security staff of the bunker, to root out dissent and disloyalty. To achieve this he might pretend to be in league with potential traitors, until he had proof and they could be safely rounded up and disposed of.

He exercised authority over the conventional Kaled military forces.

When the Dalek project came under threat from his own government, Nyder was prepared to go along with Davros in selling out the Kaleds to their enemies - accompanying the scientist to a secret meeting with the leadership in the Thal city. Here, Nyder passed on the formula for a solution which would weaken the Kaled city's protective dome. Its destruction enabled Davros to feign fury and vow vengeance - and he sent his new Dalek force into the Thal city to wipe out its inhabitants.

The bunker staff began to turn against Davros in greater numbers, and Nyder advised either flight or fight against their opponents. The scientist advised caution, however, as he planned to identify those completely loyal to him whilst the Daleks assembled to attack and kill the rebels.

They carried out this order - but then proceeded to shoot down the rest, claiming they needed no help from inferior beings. They activated their automated production line and when Davros ordered Nyder to halt it, the Daleks exterminated him. They then turned on their creator...

Played by: Peter Miles. Appearances: Genesis of the Daleks (1975).

• Third and final appearance by Miles in the series, and the one he is best remembered for. He first featured as Dr Lawrence in The Silurians, then returned to play Professor Whitaker in Invasion of the Dinosaurs.
• Miles also portrayed Nyder on audio and in an amateur stage play - The Trial of Davros.
• For the first recording block, Miles wore an Iron Cross with his uniform. Despite the parallels to the Nazis being obvious to all, the director thought it lacking in subtlety and asked for it to be discarded. It can be seen being worn in the earlier episodes of the story.
• Miles can also be heard, as a different character, in the Pertwee audio Paradise of Death, and appeared in two episodes of the first season of Blake's 7.
• Outside of acting, Miles' first love was jazz music and he performed up until his death in February 2018.
• A close friend of singer Dusty Springfield from childhood, he played guitar on her first ever recording.

N is for... Nucleus of the Swarm

An aggressive virus - the Swarm - existed in deep space, close to the orbit of the planet Saturn. Its sentient Nucleus sought to invade and conquer the macro-universe as well as the microscopic one. The virus was noetic - being spread via mental activity. Anyone entering the region of space was infected through their ship's computer systems. A shuttle crew were converted and compelled to establish a facility on Saturn's moon Titan, in which the Nucleus could create a hatchery. A mayday from the base's commander brought the TARDIS into the area, and the virus was drawn to its telepathic field. Through it, it infected the Doctor - seeing him as an ideal host for the Nucleus.

He sought help at the Bi-Al medical facility on a nearby asteroid, placing himself in a self-imposed coma to slow the influence of the virus, though those already infected fought to abduct him and bring him to Titan.

To combat the infection, the Doctor had himself and Leela cloned then miniaturised, to inject into his body. The Nucleus was found lodged in his brain - appearing as a black mound with a single eye and clawed appendage. They failed to destroy it, and it was able to evacuate his body through the clones' escape route - the tear duct. Once the miniaturisation process was reversed, the Nucleus grew to huge size, resembling a crustacean.

It was ready to spawn so insisted on being rushed to Titan where it lay its eggs in specially prepared tanks. The Doctor and others infected could be cured through a vaccine produced from Leela's blood, as she had proved to be immune to its effects - being a creature of instinct rather than intellect.

Whilst the Doctor admitted that the virus had a right to exist on the micro-level, it could not invade the macro-universe, and so engineered an explosion which destroyed the base seconds before the Swarm could hatch.

Played by: John Scott Martin. Voiced by: John Leeson. Appearances: The Invisible Enemy (1977).

• Leeson was hired to provide two voices for the same story - this and K-9 - by its director. They had worked together before, and bumped into each other in the local pub one night.
• John Scott Martin had by this time become the principal Dalek operator, as well as making a handful of on-screen appearances out of costume - The Daemons, The Green Death, Robot.
• Writers Bob Baker & Dave Martin had described the Nucleus in crustacean terms, but were disappointed in the actual shrimp-like costume, which reportedly kept shedding fibreglass shards over the studio floor.

N is for... Not-Things

Beings of obscure origins encountered by the Doctor and Donna at the edge of the universe - presumed to have travelled across from another dimension.

When the TARDIS abandoned the Doctor and Donna on a seemingly deserted spaceship, they discovered that they were not alone after all. Separated, each encountered what they thought to be the other. The creatures were attempting to establish themselves in this universe by mimicking them. Initial attempts at physically copying the pair proved unsuccessful. Limbs would be too large or too long, and at one point they could not control their size and became gigantic versions of the time-travellers, jamming themselves in one of the larger corridors of the vessel.

As time went by, however, their efforts improved and they also began to absorb their behaviours, personalities and memories.

It transpired that the pilot of this spaceship - an equine bipedal creature - had set the craft to self-destruct to prevent the beings from replacing them. A servo robot was very slowly inching its way towards activating this, whilst the pilot had taken its own life - preferring death to allowing the beings to get into our universe.

The TARDIS eventually returned, and the Doctor almost took the Not-Donna away with him, such was their total mastery of copying every aspect of them by this point. He managed to spot a tiny physical discrepancy just in time to return for the real Donna. Both beings perished when the robot finally detonated the self-destruct.

Played by: David Tennant and Catherine Tate. Appearances: Wild Blue Yonder (2023).

N is for... Nostrovite

A race of vicious shapeshifting aliens encountered by the Torchwood Cardiff team. They could pass for people, but under stress they showed their fangs, talons and red eyes. Their blood was black in colour.

Carnivores, they only fed on living flesh. The female Nostrovite could spin a strong web-like substance, to keep their prey confined until it could be devoured.

One weakness of their disguise was an inability to mimic body odours - allowing them to be identified.

Gwen Cooper was bitten by a male Nostrovite on the eve of her wedding to fiancé Rhys. The creature was shot dead. On waking the next morning, she discovered herself to be heavily pregnant - thus discovering that this was how the creatures propagated. 

Females produced eggs which the male then carried in their mouths. They implanted an egg into a host body through their bite. The embryo grew rapidly, with birth following within 24 hours. 

The mother would then hunt down the host to tear it open and release the child - which would use the host's body as its first feed.

The mate of the dead Nostrovite, posing as a woman named Carrie, tracked Gwen to her wedding venue, where it killed a number of staff and guests before copying others, including Captain Jack and Rhys' mother, Brenda.

The female of the species proved much harder to kill than the male but she was eventually shot dead.

The child was destroyed by Owen using a laser scalpel device seconds before the birth.

Played by: Collette Brown (Carrie). Appearances: TW 2.9 Something Borrowed (2008).

• John Barrowman and Nerys Hughes (Brenda) also appeared as Nostrovite copies of their characters.
• Liver Birds star Hughes had previously played Todd in Kinda.
• Brown began her career as a children's TV presenter, on series Hangar 17. She later featured in the drama Our Friends in the North.

Episode 132: The Tenth Planet (2)

Synopsis:

Outside Snowcap Base, three soldiers have been killed by large robotic beings which have emerged from out of a blizzard...

In the base's tracking room, General Cutler continues to disbelieve the Doctor's claims that they will shortly have visitors from the new planet. He is concentrating more on the deteriorating situation with the Zeus 4 capsule and its two occupants. They will not survive another orbit.

The new arrivals don the overcoats of the dead soldiers and enter the base.

At International Space Command HQ in Geneva, Wigner learns that communications with Snowcap have been lost. The TV news is now showing the general public images of the tenth planet, with scientists arguing over the similarity of its land masses to those of Earth.

With everyone concentrating on the capsule, only the Doctor notices the silver boots of the three soldiers who have slipped into the tracking room. He tries to warn the others but is too late.

The beings unmask themselves, shooting down a guard who attempts to attack them.

Their leader, Krail, informs them that they are Cybermen and have come from the planet Mondas, which was indeed the long-lost twin of the Earth as the Doctor had earlier tried to explain.

Mondas left the solar system centuries ago, and in order to survive their harsh peripatetic existence in the wastes of outer space, the inhabitants resorted to spare part surgery to replace limbs and organs. They are now almost entirely robotic in body, but retain organic brains. However, these have been surgically altered to remove what they see as weaknesses - human emotions.

When Cutler insists that they be permitted to bring the Zeus 4 down, Krail simply states that there is no point as it will be destroyed anyway. It is inevitable. Not only is Mondas exerting gravitational disturbances, it is also responsible for the energy drain which affected both the capsule and its pilots.

When Ben tries to use the dead guard's gun, he is ordered detained - after one of the Cybermen has effortlessly bent the gun barrel. He finds himself locked in the base's cinema room.

When Cutler refuses to co-operate and sends out a distress signal, Krail renders him unconscious. Scientist Barclay is left to do as the Cybermen command. They state that they want the humans to come to Mondas with them, as the energy drain will destroy the Earth. Once there, they will be converted to be like them.

He is allowed to make a final effort to save the capsule, but this ends in failure. 

The capsule explodes.

Ben devises a plan of escape. He points the film projector at the door then calls for a Cyberman. When it opens the door it is blinded, and he is able to seize its weapon. When it refuses to surrender, he is compelled to shoot and destroy it.

He then returns to the tracking room. Cutler has woken up and spots Ben sneaking in - motioning to him to give him the Cyberman weapon. He opens fire and destroys Krail and the other Cyberman, then hurriedly contacts Geneva to inform them of the alien incursion.

Wigner informs him that they had sent up a rescue mission - Zeus 5 - shortly before the capsule blew up. A single astronaut was selected, who had to be a volunteer. The person chosen is Terry Cutler - the General's son.

The new craft has double the energy reserves of the Zeus 4, but Cutler is convinced his son has been sent to his death. He will do anything to save him.

A radar technician suddenly announces multiple contacts. A fleet of hundreds of Cyberman spaceships is approaching the Earth...

Data:

Written by Kit Pedler

Recorded: Saturday 24th September 1966 - Riverside Studio 1

First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 15th October 1966

Ratings: 6.4 million / AI 48

Designer: Peter Kindred

Director: Derek Martinus

Additional cast: Krail (Reg Whitehead), Talon (Harry Brooks), Shav (Gregg Palmer), Roy Skelton (Cyberman voices), Christopher Matthews (Radar Technician), Glenn Beck (TV Announcer)

Critique:

Polly: But we cannot live with you. You're... you're different. You've got no feelings.

Krail: Feelings? I do not understand that word.

The Doctor: Emotions. Love, pride, hate, fear. Have you no emotions, sir?

As mentioned last week, once Pedler had decided on the aliens being creatures who were cybernetically enhanced, his initial thoughts were either to break up the human body shape all together, or to have the Cybermen look like idealised men, with only subtle implants. They would all look the same, with only a small coin-sized metal plate on the temple, with a wire leading into the hairline, which could easily be hidden with a hat. They had metal rods and rams at the joints of arms and legs. An electronic chest unit was also specified.

Pedler also specified a transparent forearm, with a human hand at the end. This would have been manageable in close-up, with a model arm, but impossible to achieve convincingly otherwise.

Costume designer Sandra Reid decided against the simplified look to make the Cybermen more striking - by making them more robotic, yet still retaining elements of their past humanity.

The actors wore a grey body suit made from a grey jersey material, with a hood of similar material covering the head. Over this would be worn a transparent plastic outfit, attached to which were plastic epaulettes and metal rings at the joints to indicate the muscular aids mentioned by Pedler.

On the front was the chest unit, which was of considerable size and weight. At the bottom of this hung the Cyber-weaponry - a rectangular frame in the middle of which was a circular unit, from a common household lampshade fitting.

On the head was a metal skull cap which had a large cylindrical lamp attached by three tubes - one on either side of the head and one at the rear. The "handlebars" had a transparent mid-section.

Holes were cut in the jersey material of the hood for eyes and mouth, lined with a silvered vinyl. The actors had the area around eyes and mouth blacked out with make-up. 

The headpieces and chest units were constructed by Shawcraft Models of Uxbridge: below, one of their staff can be seen wearing parts of the costume in the 8mm Follow That Dalek film, made in 1967.

The lamp on the top of the head was originally intended to illuminate - but the bulb exploded on the first test and the idea was abandoned.

The Cybermen made their debut at Ealing on Friday 2nd September on Ealing Film Studio's Stage 3, for their initial appearance at the conclusion to the first episode.

The second instalment required none of the Ealing filming. Some stock footage of radar dishes and radio-telescopes was all that was employed.

Three actors donned the heavy and cumbersome Cyberman costumes for the second studio session. The weight combined with heat from the studio lighting caused them considerable difficulties. Performers had fainted at Ealing, and once fallen could not get up without assistance.

Problems with the stability of the head lamp had already been flagged up during filming, and in studio it was found necessary to use clear sticky tape to hold the "handlebars" in place (see image below). This is apparent in some scenes when viewed on DVD today, though it would have been invisible to viewers at the time, watching the series on tiny 405-line televisions.

The script named the three Krail, Talon and Shav. The first acted as the leader whilst Talon was the Cyberman who confronted Ben in the projection room. These names were never actually used in any of the on-screen dialogue.

The Cyberman voices were provided by Roy Skelton, who had previously provided vocals for the Monoids in The Ark. He discussed how the Cybermen would sound with Martinus.

The actors simply opened their mouths whilst their words were heard - holding them open for the duration of the speech. They therefore had to learn the script - though on occasion we can see them mistime. The sing-song style of speech was supposed to indicate a computerised mode, like a tape loop which might run at different speeds.

A short film sequence from the end of Episode One was used to open the episode, followed by the computer text for the titles, accompanied by an electronic buzzing sound.

The Cyber-weapon had a lamp fitted, which lit up when fired. This was connected to a long flex, and the scene required a recording break as the actor playing the guard had to have smoke pumped into his costume.

The guards' gun was replaced by one with a dummy barrel, so that Whitehead could easily bend it double.

To render Cutler unconscious, the Cyberman simply held his head between its hands.

The Cybermen required two other recording breaks - one for Brooks to smash a dummy door into the projection room, and another to set up the deaths of Krail and Shav.

The episode ended with a shot of the radar scanner screen, across which a number of small lights moved in unison to indicate the approaching invaders.

A couple of queries generated by this episode: why is Ben simply locked up when the guard is shot down, and what exactly is the confusion reported on TV regarding the continents of Mondas?

The first is simply one of those conventions that regulars get to survive, despite doing exactly the same thing that an extra or stunt man might have just done, with fatal consequences.

The confusion amongst the scientists is harder to explain. All they would need to do is turn a photograph upside down to see that Mondas is an exact duplicate of the Earth.

On getting back to his home in Kent after recording, William Hartnell fell ill with bronchitis. Prescribed rest as well as medication, he would be unable to attend the rehearsals for the following episode.

As the fourth and final episode of The Tenth Planet has been lost, it means that this is our final sight of the actor in his original role as the Doctor, before being forced to step down from the series.

It is also our only proper look at the original Mondasian Cybermen in action. They show up only at the close of the first episode, and feature in just the one filmed sequence in the third.

Hartnell's illness wasn't the only health crisis to hit this story. Gerry Davis had already been forced to deal with the hospitalisation of Kit Pedler during the writing stage - as we'll hear about next time...

Trivia:

• The ratings see a big rise in viewing numbers, with almost a million more tuning in than for Episode 1 - but the appreciation figure actually drops slightly, taking it back beneath the 50 mark once again.
• Pedler had specified human hands for the Cybermen, but Sandra Reid's recollection was that they were supposed to have gloves. When these failed to turn up at Ealing, a silver-blue make-up was applied to the actors' hands instead. The gloves turned up later, by which time it was decided they were no longer required.
• The film Ben finds in the projector is an old Western. In his novelisation of the story, Davis changes this to a James Bond movie - specifically The Man With The Golden Gun.
• Sir Hugh Greene, Director General of the BBC, sent a note to the weekly review meeting to say how much he enjoyed this episode - especially as it had featured more Cybermen.
• This episode was selected for a number of National Film Theatre screenings across England in the 1980's.
• Gregg Palmer - Dutch actor Donald Van der Maaten - can be seen in the flesh, as it were, in The War Games. He plays the German officer, Lieut. Lucke, in the third episode.
• Hammer Horror fans will recognise Christopher Matthews as Dennis Waterman's brother in The Scars of Dracula. Another horror role was the male lead in Scream and Scream Again, which also featured Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. Sci-fi roles included an X-Wing pilot in the first Star Wars film, and a member of Moonbase Alpha's crew in two episodes of the first season of Space:1999.

Story 297b: Flux - War of the Sontarans

In which the Doctor succeeds in guiding the TARDIS back through time to avoid impact with the Flux - a rolling mass of destructive energy which is devouring the cosmos.

The wave strikes, and the Doctor suddenly finds herself alone in a bizarre dream-like landscape, dominated by a huge crumbling house. Before she can identify where she is, she is on a battlefield. There are dead soldiers lying around, wearing red uniforms of the mid-19th Century, and abandoned artillery.

The TARDIS is also here, and Dan and Yaz soon appear. A woman approaches, accusing them of robbing the dead. She is Mary Seacole, who has come to the Crimea to nurse the wounded - for this is Sebastapol in 1855. They here enemy troops approach, and the Doctor is shocked to discover that they are not Russian soldiers. They are Sontaran warriors...

Vinder has also been thrown into another environment by the Flux. He is in an ancient temple complex, where he is confronted by floating Priest Triangles. They ask if he has come to make repairs, as they need someone to fix something of great importance. Led into the inner chamber, he discovers that six plinths, which appear empty, actually have a white-robed figure standing on them - only visible when approached. These are the Mouri, but two are missing.

Seacole takes the Doctor and her companions to her hospital / shelter, which she calls the "British Hotel". First Dan, then Yaz vanish, and the Doctor discovers that the TARDIS doors have disappeared - trapping her here. She assumes this to be a side effect of the Flux interacting with vortex energy.

Dan finds himself back on his street in Liverpool - but dominating the skyline is a Sontaran warship. The aliens have invaded. Chased through the city, he encounters his parents - Neville and Eileen - who tell him that the planet is now dominated by Sontarans, despite human resistance activity.

Yaz has arrived at the same location as Vinder. As she explores, she encounters the Liverpudlian tunnel-obsessive Joseph Williamson, who has also found his way here. He is looking for the way home, and wanders away.

Yaz then meets the Priest Triangles, which lead her to where Vinder is waiting.

The Doctor meets Lt General Logan at the British Hotel - commander of the British forces here. he is planning a counter-offensive against the Sontarans - and refuses to heed the Doctor's advice about them.

She fears a bloodbath should Victorian soldiers attempt to battle alien laser weaponry.

From Logan and Seacole, the Doctor discovers that the corruption of history is only recent. Seacole reveals that she has a wounded Sontaran soldier - Svild - hidden at the Hotel. The Doctor decides that he should be released, so that she can follow him and discover the location of the Sontaran base.

She is determined to try to negotiate a peace. Svild will inform his commander that she is here.

They follow him discreetly and see him enter a nearby valley, where a fleet of warships are hidden by a camouflage barrier.

He tells his commander - Skaak - of the Doctor's request for a parley, before being shot dead for having allowed himself to be captured.

Dan learns that the Sontarans invaded two days ago - just as the Lupari spaceships formed their shield around the planet. They have made their base at the docks, so he heads for there - sending his parents to safety.

Vinder and Yaz have learned that they are in the Temple of Atropos, on a planet called Time. The Mouri act as conduits for all the time in the universe, which passes through them. They control it and prevent it from causing chaos - but two have been damaged.

Dan witnesses Commander Ritskaw executing curfew-breakers, and overhears mention of a full temporal offensive which is due to take place. He decides to break into one of the warships to learn more.

The Doctor attend her parlay with Skaak and discovers that the Sontarans have simply exploited the Flux - slipping into Earth just before the Lupari shield closed. They have made this incursion into history as a test, before launching their main attack on the whole of Earth's past, present and future.

Her attempts at peace are halted by the arrival of Logan, who pledges his forces to battle. Skaak naturally accepts the challenge.

The Doctor is unable to halt the slaughter. She and Seacole break into a warship, where she manages to make contact with Dan on another ship in 2021. They must each stop their respective war fleet.

Dan is then captured by warriors - but is saved from summary execution by the arrival of Karvanista, who continues to be bound to him.

Logan returns a broken man, his troops almost entirely wiped out. The Doctor knows that Sontarans are vulnerable for a short period each day when they re-energise themselves from their ship. She forms a plan, then she, Seacole and Logan set off for the hidden valley with some surviving soldiers. Once there, they begin sabotaging the ships as the aliens recharge. However, Logan decides to adapt the scheme.

In Liverpool, Karvanista arranges for the ship he and Dan are in to take off then crash into the others - creating a temporal chain reaction. They escape through a waste unit into the dock.

Instead of merely disabling the fleet in Sebastapol - to force the Sontarans to withdraw, Logan has released their fuel which will be ignited. 

The Doctor discovers this too late, as the entire fleet explodes. The Liverpool fleet is also destroyed, with the temporal shockwave wiping out both incursions and putting history back on course.

The Doctor is able to gain access to the TARDIS again - now increasingly warped within - and heads off in search of her companions.

It materialises in the Temple of Atropos - where she encounters Swarm and Azure. They have with them a giant mute figure, known as Passenger. They have destroyed the Priest Triangles and now Yaz and Vinder are captive - transformed into the missing Mouri. 

The full force of time is about to flow through them, destroying them...

Flux - War of the Sontarans was written by Chris Chibnall and first broadcast on Sunday 7th November 2021.

It is the first of two instalments of the Flux storyline which could have been stand-alone episodes, with some rejigging. In this case, the removal of the Temple of Atropos material. The Sontarans have been shown to be interested in mastering time travel since the beginning. In The Time Warrior they had some limited technology, allowing Linx to move between Medieval England and the 20th Century. By The Invasion of Time, they are actually launching an attack on Gallifrey itself, and may well have conquered or destroyed it had the Doctor not been there. (So it's ironic that their agents, the Vardans, involved him in the first place).

So a story in which the Sontarans attempted another invasion by manipulating time and altering history as a test could easily have been a story in its own rights.

As mentioned last time, the aliens have undergone a design makeover. The basic outline remains, including the short stature and the domed helmet which reflects their domed heads. In place of the very rubbery-looking blue costumes introduced in Series 4, they now sport a dark padded suit, with a number of armoured sections - on chest, shoulders, knees and forearms. Below is a costume from the Worlds of Wonder exhibition.

The metalwork is tarnished, looking slightly rusted, and therefore more lived-in and battle-used. As for the masks, they have also undergone a tweak to make them resemble more closely the original Linx mask, in terms of skull shape and colouring. Their spaceships remain the version introduced in The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky.

We only visit the planet Time for a few scenes - when Vinder arrives, followed by Yaz, and finally when the Doctor catches up with them. Swarm and Azure only appear briefly, accompanied by new character "Passenger". Victorian eccentric Williamson appears, and his role in events remains totally enigmatic.

Dan properly becomes the Doctor's companion this week, whilst Vinder also joins the Doctor's narrative.

We are also introduced to a monochrome dream-like landscape in which there is a huge, tottering house, which appears to be slowly breaking apart.

The guest cast is headed by Sara Powell as Mary Seacole. She had a recurring role in fire brigade drama London's Burning. Lt General Logan is Gerald Kyd. Like Powell, he has appeared in forensics drama Silent Witness and is currently co-starring in Love Rat.

We are introduced to dan's parents, but unlike previous companions  since 2005 we will not get to know them very well. This will prove to be their sole appearance. Both actors are Brookside veterans - Paul Broughton playing Neville, and Sue Jenkins playing Eileen. Broughton also featured in the BBC4 live version of The Quatermass Experiment.

The Sontarans are the same as last week - Jonathan Watson and Dan Starkey, and Craig Els is back as Karvanista. 

New character "Passenger" is Jonny Mathers. 7' 2" tall, he is actually a tenancy sustainment officer in his day job.

Overall, one of the highlights of the series - mainly because of its "stand-alone" quality and a respectful treatment of the Sontarans. The aliens were badly handled by Steven Moffat, being treated as figures of ridicule only, and there purely for comic relief. Writers like Robert Holmes could get across how ludicrous they could be, but balancing this with their ruthlessness and danger.

The horse joke is great.

Things you might like to know:

• Mary Seacole was born on 23rd November 1805 in Kingston, Jamaica. Her mother ran a boarding house and had herbalist skills, which may have led Mary into the nursing field. The "British Hotel", established when she travelled to the Crimea to help wounded troops, was intended as accommodation, but the officers explained that the men would prefer their own barracks. She therefore turned it into an eating establishment, which proved highly successful. She died in 1881, and in 2004 was voted the greatest ever black Briton.
• Seacole had already met the Twelfth Doctor, but on audio.
• The Mouri are all played by female actors, though it is hard to notice on first watch due to the costume / make-up.
• Their derives from "mauri", which means a lifeforce, vital essence, or symbol of a life presence (or an object or person which embodies this). This from the Māori culture.
• "Atropos" is Greek for inflexible or unalterable - so the opposite to flux.
• The Doctor uses Venusian Aikido to overpower her guard - the martial art introduced in the Third Doctor's era.
• Some of the dialogue mirrors the Tennyson poem The Charge of the Light Brigade - inspired by an event once described by the Second Doctor as "magnificent folly".
• An alien race called Ravagers were to have featured in the temple scenes, but were cut from the final draft.
• A spin-off graphic novel featuring Captain Jack was planned for this episode, back when the Flux storyline was set to include him. This was scrapped when Barrowman got cancelled.
• The Priest Triangles are voiced by Nigel Lambert. He played the scientist Hardin in The Leisure Hive.
• The mask worn by Mathers as Passenger had previously featured in a pornographic Star Wars parody. And no, I've never seen it. Honest.

A waiting game...

We all know that the next series will be on screen in Spring 2025, no matter what happens. This is mainly down to the fact that they filmed it straight after what they call Season One (but most of us call Series14), allowing Gatwa to do other work. It's in the can, and unless someone wants to write it off for tax purposes (as happened with the DC / HBO Max Batgirl movie a couple of years ago) we'll get to see it next year.

What happens next is the mystery, and there are concerns.

In the summer, around the time that the programme was being plugged (though hardly prominently) at San Diego Comic-Con, RTD was upbeat and told interviewers that the third new series would likely be commissioned in the autumn. He's now saying something different.

The issue these days is the co-production deal. Left to Bad Wolf / BBC, this would no doubt have been a fairly speedy process, but we now have the House of Mouse in the equation. 

Their input, partly editorial but primarily financial, is crucial. Were Disney to pull funding, the series would really need to find another partner in order to afford a full season of the quality we are now used to.

RTD is now saying that the decision to commission a third series won't be made until after S15 has aired. This would take us to late spring / early summer, depending on the broadcast dates, before they even begin to make the next series. 

And that's if it happens at all.

In my opinion, there is only one reason why Disney would hold back their decision to re-commit: they were not impressed by S14 alone, and want to see how S15 fares, and it will all come down to income against expenditure. 

It cannot be about the quality of the new stories in the can - as they will already have been screened for them. If they liked the response to S14, and are happy with the new batch of episodes, then why not go ahead and commit to more?

S14 may have had good audience figures for younger adults, but that was the only demographic which was reported as encouraging. As I've stated before, RTD was expected to increase the audience share for that demographic - but I'm sure it was supposed to be as well as the others, not instead of.

Overall, the BBC claimed to be happy due to audience share / weekly placing. These things are of some importance to Disney as well, but they are not a public service broadcaster. It's a business, and they want to see new subscribers and increased advertising revenue. 

If the new episodes can't deliver that, Disney will not reinvest. They've just shown that they can be perfectly ruthless when it comes to a series that doesn't meet expectations, even a prestige one - just look at Star Wars: The Acolyte, which has been cancelled after one season.

The big concern is that S15 is simply more of the same as S14, which under-performed when judged against most criteria of success.

Episodes - Afterlife: Zeus 4 Spacesuits (Updated)

The spacesuits worn by Schultz and Williams of the Zeus 4 mission were not created for Doctor Who. They were existing outfits which had first seen screen time in the 1964 film The First Men in the Moon (below).

In this they are worn by the modern day astronauts who are supposed to be the first group to set foot on the Moon, before discovering evidence of an unknown earlier British expedition. Two colour schemes are seen - yellow and a very dark blue. The most distinctive feature of the suit is the white ribbed vest, upon which the astronauts' flags have been stitched.

There are no colour images from The Tenth Planet, but we can see that Williams is wearing a lighter suit than Schultz - so presumably the Australian is wearing the dark blue version to Earl Cameron's yellow one. Their sleeves are quite short - but the movie image shows that the suits were originally intended to be worn with long gauntlets.

The suits only appear at the beginning and end of the Ray Harryhausen movie, which was based on the story by H G Wells.

However - that wasn't the starting point...

Before they started cropping up on screen, the outfits were actual high-altitude flying suits, developed by Windak Ltd in 1962 (above). Following WWII, pilots were flying at ever greater altitudes and required pressurised suits. The visor was heated to prevent misting, and the closed automatically in the event of an emergency.

The suits reappear during the Troughton era, when they are seen to be worn by the crew of The Wheel in Space. We see them most clearly at the beginning of the surviving sixth episode, when they are worn by Jamie and Zoe. Again we can see the colour difference - with Frazer Hines wearing the dark suit and Wendy Padbury the yellow.

It's difficult to see as we don't get a very good look at it, but the yellow suit also appears to feature - minus the white vest - in Professor Eldred's space museum in The Seeds of Death.

The most famous appearance by the spacesuit by far, in that it would have been seen by many millions of people, was in the second of the Star Wars movies - The Empire Strikes Back.

Darth Vader assembles a group of mercenaries and bounty hunters to track down Luke, Leia, Han and company, best known of whom is Boba Fett. Alongside him, however, is a character named Bossk - a reptilian biped who is wearing the yellow version of the Zeus 4 spacesuit. Naturally enough there was an action figure release. Bossk also features briefly in Return of the Jedi, as well as The Clone Wars animated series.

Update:

Many thanks to eagle-eyed "Reykjavik" - see comments below - for letting me know of an earlier Star Wars appearance by the spacesuit. A humanoid character named BoShek (above) wears the dark version in the cantina sequence in 1977's Star Wars: The First One. He is seen speaking to Obi-Wan at the bar when they first arrive, prior to encountering Han. Played by Basil Tomlin, apparently the character hails from Corellia.

If anyone knows of any more appearances, do let me know.