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...
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...
- 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.
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