Episode 226: The Invasion (7)

Synopsis:

As a strange alien tone sounds across the city, people fall into a catatonic state whilst Cybermen begin to emerge from the sewer system and march unopposed through the streets of London...

At Professor Watkins' home, the Doctor has also been affected due to his depolariser falling off. His friends quickly recover it and he revives. 

Captain Turner radios to UNIT HQ.

Reports have come in of Cybermen appearing everywhere. The Brigadier informs them that he will be sending a jeep to collect them all as they will be safer at the HQ.

In his office, Vaughn is consulting with the Cyber-Director. It announces that the main invasion fleet will now move in, and the radio homing beacon at the IE compound must be activated.

Vaughn informs it that his organisation will now take over, with the Cybermen already on Earth to remain under his control. 

The Cybermen see this as opposition to them, but he argues that he is more familiar with the way things work on Earth. They counter that all humans are now under their control and he begins to lose his temper, revealing his personal ambitions. He manages to end the meeting with an agreement from them to continue as he had advised.

However, as soon as he terminates the discussion he summons Packer and orders him to fetch Watkins, who they know to be at his home. His machine must go into mass production immediately. They do not expect any resistance from UNIT.

Sergeant Walters pulls up in front of Watkins' house - but closely followed by an IE vehicle.

Watkins is shot in the leg as they flee, and then Jamie is hit and wounded.

Turner calls the Brigadier who arranges for a helicopter to pick them up.

Packer reports to Vaughn what has happened - guessing correctly that it was through the Doctor that UNIT evaded the Cyber-control signal. He argues that the Doctor should have been killed when they first had the chance, and worries that without the Cerebratron Mentor they are powerless against the Cybermen. Suppressing his anger, Vaughn simply claims that he has the Doctor and his friends where he wants them, but orders that the radio beacon be activated. The full Cyberman invasion force must be brought in as soon as possible.

The UNIT transporter is now in flight.

The Doctor argues that their first priority is to destroy the Cyber-control signal, as there will be thousands of Cybermen approaching from space and Earth must be able to defend itself. The Brigadier points out that they would need a missile to achieve this as it is being beamed from space - then recalls that the Russians had a manned rocket about to launch. A warhead could be fitted to this instead of an astronaut capsule.

Captain Turner will travel to Russia with depolarisers to organise this.

The second priority is the destruction of the homing beacon at the IE compound, to prevent more Cybermen landing. 

The Brigadier orders the aircraft to take him to Henlow Downs missile base. They may be able to destroy the Cyberships as they approach. The aircraft lands at an airfield where Turner has arranged for a supersonic craft to take him on to Russia. 

The Doctor suggests that the Brigadier take Zoe with him to the missile base, as her computational skills may prove very useful. He, meanwhile, plans to go and see Vaughn...

The Doctor drives off in a UNIT jeep, with the Brigadier ordering a helicopter to tail him and remain close by should he need it. 

The Doctor soon reports that he is going to enter the IE building via the sewer network, assuming that it is now empty of Cybermen.

Vaughn and Packer are meeting in the office when an alarm sounds. The Doctor appears on the internal camera system, announcing his arrival to the bemused Vaughn.

The Doctor keeps his UNIT radio switched on so that they will be able to listen in.

The Brigadier and Zoe arrive at Henlow Downs where they begin reviving the ground crew, who are commanded by Major Branwell.

The Doctor is trying to reason with Vaughn, pointing out that the Cybermen will destroy all life on Earth. Vaughn, however, sees this as merely a delaying tactic and is trying to second-guess what UNIT are up to. He has ordered the radio homing beacon to be aligned, and assumes that this is what UNIT will target. They will be too late as far as he is concerned. He refuses to put a stop to what has taken years to plan, with success within his grasp.

Zoe learns from Branwell and Sergeant Peters that the radar at the base will only pick up the Cyberships when they are practically on top of them.

The Cyberships begin to appear on radar - far more than Henlow Downs has missiles to intercept.

Zoe asks for the countdown to be paused - which the Brigadier authorises against the complaints from the Major - then makes some rapid calculations. She shows Branwell and Peters how their few missiles could be used to set off a chain reaction that would wipe out the entire fleet.

The missiles are launched...

The Cyber-Director reports to Vaughn that the fleet is being destroyed, and he is accused to betraying the Cybermen. They will now take over the invasion. 

When Vaughn tries to argue with it, he is sent reeling by an energy pulse generated by the machine, which announces that a Cyber-Megatron bomb will be delivered. This will kill every living being on the planet.

"Is this what you wanted?" demands the Doctor of Vaughn. "To be the ruler of a dead world?"...

Data:

Written by Derrick Sherwin (from a story by Kit Pedler)

Recorded: Friday 1st November 1968 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.15pm, Saturday 14th December 1968

Ratings: 7.2 million / AI 55

VFX: Bill King & Trading Post

Designer: Richard Hunt

Director: Douglas Camfield

Additional cast: Clifford Earl (Major Branwell), Norman Hartley (Sergeant Peters)

Critique:

Before we look at the making-of, let's get some negatives out of the way first. It comes as a bit of a disappointment, after the big invasion set piece at the conclusion to Episode 6, that the Cybermen do not feature in this episode at all, save for the reprise at the start.

Then there is the model work. They are great models, but the filming of their destruction is far from satisfying. They are simply shot at by fireworks, some of which clearly miss their target, and the sequence fails to match what Zoe has so cleverly organised for the missiles.

Lastly, there's the overuse of rather ropey stock footage employed for the missile launches. This is made even worse when the whole story is watched in one sitting as the exact same material is used in the final episode as well. Some is even repeated within this episode.

The draft script for this episode once again described the Cyberships as looking exactly as they had done in The Wheel in Space - cylindrical and covered in a pattern of hexagons.

Sherwin specifically recommended stock footage of Nike-Zeus missiles, presumably because he already knew about this material in the library.

Early rewrites to the scenes set at Watkins' home were carried out in early August. This included the wounding of both the professor and Jamie. The former was not needed for the remainder of the story, whilst Frazer Hines would be having a holiday during the week of recording of the eighth instalment.

(As this incident takes place so early in the episode, it's a pity Camfield couldn't have recorded it during the making of the previous episode and so free Hines, and Burnham, from both episodes. Presumably it would have meant an extra set - the hallway - and he may have lacked the time in studio anyway).

Earlier in the story, Watkins' front door had been recorded in studio, based on an actual location used on film. This was at No.18 St. James' Gardens in Kensington, filmed on Wednesday 11th September.

The only other filming for this episode was the model work, undertaken at Ealing on Friday 30th August.

There were two different types of Cybership model. One comprised a pair of drums with a glowing globe between, representing warships, whilst another type was covered in rectangular pods, suggesting transporter ships. These had been built by Bill King's company.

They were filmed sitting on tables covered in black cloth and with black drapes behind. The camera tracked past the stationery models to suggest movement. The attack on the ships was achieved by firing small explosive charges at them, which proved less than successful.

I'll have a separate "Afterlife" post about these Cybership models, as they turn up in some unexpected places over the next couple of years.

No Cybermen were required in studio on Friday 1st November, when recording began with two scenes set in Watkins' home, after which recording followed story order. 

One of the recording breaks was to allow extras wearing UNIT uniforms on the transporter aircraft set to change into conventional army attire to become Henlow Downs ground staff.

The Doctor flipping a coin to decide which direction to go in the sewers was a visual ad-lib from Troughton. His POV of the empty tunnels came from still images of the full sewer set taken during the making of the previous episode.

The big new set this week was the command centre at Henlow Downs. This was dominated by a large illuminated display which showed the launch status of its eight missiles.

The stock footage of the missiles came from Visnews and from the Ministry of Technology. As this material was silent, Brian Hodgson provided radiophonic sounds to overscore the images.

A bright lighting effect was used to indicate the attack on Vaughn from the Cyber-Director.

The closing credits began to roll over a close-up of the shocked Vaughn.

We've talked about some of the negatives, so what are the positives - for it is actually a very good episode. It's an especially good episode for Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier, who up until now has been pretty much confined to his aircraft headquarters. He finally gets out and about and has a lot more to do.

The Brigadier as we know him from the Pertwee era isn't quite there yet, but he's starting to develop.

There's a lovely little exchange between him and Zoe where she complains that a helicopter won't be of much use to the Doctor down in the sewers. He isn't at all concerned, and simply asks her if she fancies a cup of tea. The look on Padbury's face is priceless. (This sequence, as well as one from the missile control room, was used to illustrate the somewhat sexist nature of the series in its early days, in the documentary (More Than) 30 Years in the TARDIS).

With Hines starting his holiday early - Jamie being injured and no longer playing any part in proceedings - this is very much Zoe's turn to shine. She changed back into her iconic glittery catsuit in the last episode, and here she is seen coming up with the plan to use a limited number of missiles to take out the entire Cyberman invasion fleet. The scene is let down just a bit by the soldiers ogling her derriere as she goes from display to display taking notes of the readings.

The episode ends with a couple of great scenes between the Doctor and Vaughn, initially dancing around each other until the would-be dictator sees his dream of conquest suddenly torn away from him.

The Doctor has only sneaked into the IE building to avoid the Cybermen. As soon as he's in, he announces his presence. They may oppose each other, but the Doctor and Vaughn clearly have some mutual admiration for each other, as can be seen by the way in which the pair sit and chat in the office.

You do have to wonder about the Cyber-Megatron bomb business. If the Cybermen were never interested in enslaving or converting the population of Earth - that was only ever Vaughn's intention - and they simply want the planet's mineral wealth, then why did they enter into this arrangement with him and invade in the first place?

Trivia:

• The ratings see a sizeable improvement this week, despite the new competition from Gerry Anderson's Joe 90 in some ITV regions, plus the fact that many people would be out Christmas shopping or attending events in the run-up to the festive period.
• Amongst the Henlow Downs personnel is background artist Reg Cranfield. He had been the very first person to ever appear in Doctor Who - the policeman who checks the junkyard gates in the broadcast version of An Unearthly Child. Previous appearances included walk-ons in The Massacre, The Gunfighters and The Underwater Menace, and he would later feature in The Silurians, The Mutants and The Green Death. His final Doctor Who role was as a Time Lord in The Deadly Assassin.
• Clifford Earl had played the desk sergeant in The Feast of Steven. He was often called upon to play policemen of one rank or another - a staggering 42 times according to his IMDb listing.
• Like Earl, Norman Hartley had been employed on the series previously by Douglas Camfield - playing the Viking raider Ulf in The Time Meddler.

Inspirations: Empress of Mars

It's a Mark Gatiss story - so expect a lot of literary and movie references...

He originally intended his next episode to be a sequel to Sleep No More, but that had been very poorly received. 

Had he written it, it would have been set on Earth in the present day, with the same sleep compression technology being introduced into the world's financial sector - so more of a prequel actually.

Deciding that he would step back from the series along with the departing Steven Moffat, and knowing that the next showrunner might want to do his own thing, with his own writers, he also realised that this might well be his final story for Doctor Who - at least for a while.

Whilst in Morocco with Moffat writing Sherlock, he asked if he could write the story he had always wanted to do.

It had been Gatiss who single-handedly got the Ice Warriors back into the series, when Moffat had been resistant - thinking them clichéd lumbering big green monsters. Still reluctant, Moffat only agreed to the story if Gatiss did something new with them, which is how he came up with the concept of an "Ice Queen".

Gatiss wanted to see them on their own planet - Mars - where he could expand their mythology.

However, his first idea had been to set this story on Peladon, as this was the time of the "Brexit" referendum - The Curse of Peladon having been inspired by the UK joining the European community, so sort of full circle for Britain in Europe.

After receiving a text message from Ian McNeice, enquiring if he could feature in the series again, Gatiss initially considered setting the new story during Churchill's time.

The Ice Warriors had simply been somewhat stereotypical alien invaders to begin with, until creator Brian Hayles chose to shake them up by showing them in a good light - still as noble warriors but now peacefully involved in the diplomatic manoeuvres of the Galactic Federation. He then had them revert to villains for their final appearance in the classic series, though stressing that Azaxyr's was a militaristic breakaway faction.

Gatiss brought them back in Cold War, a story very much influenced by their very first appearance.

That episode, however, had hinted at their wider culture, which had also been expanded upon in spin-off material.

Had Hayles been able to write the second Ice Warrior story he wanted - "Lords of the Red Planet" - then he would have shown a lot more of their origins and social structure. However, Terrance Dicks had pretty much rewritten it to become The Seeds of Death.

The design for the Empress' helmet, more domed and with the open mouth area, derives from the so-called "Ice Lords", played by Alan Bennion in a trio of classic era stories. They're never called this on screen, though Ssorg does refer to his superior as Lord Izlyr at one point in The Curse of Peladon. It's a name from fandom which has sort of stuck.

Ice Warrior 'Friday' derives his name from the character Man Friday in Daniel Defoe's The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719) - named by the title character after being rescued by him on that day of the week. The novel was supposedly inspired by the real life castaway Alexander Selkirk, who survived four years stranded on an island off Chile.

Beyond the Ice Warriors, there are two obvious inspirations for this episode - both with a Victorian setting.

The first is H.G. Wells' The First Men on the Moon, which was first published in 1901 but had been serialised the year before. In this Victorian explorers - a scientist named Cavor and his businessman neighbour, Bedford - travel to the Moon. Bedford has money troubles and participates in the expedition as he believes that the Moon's mineral resources can be exploited. Once there, they find the satellite to be inhabited by the Selenites. It was filmed in 1964, with visual effects by Ray Harryhausen.

Mark Gatiss had played Cavor in a 2010 BBC version, which he himself had adapted.

The imagery of futurism combined with Victorian heavy engineering would later come to be known as "Steampunk" - a literary and fashion movement which envisaged certain scientific advances taking place a century earlier than they did in reality. The phrase was coined in 1987, first associated with Japanese manga and anime, but the genre can be traced back to the likes of Wells and Jules Verne.

The Doctor Who Christmas Special A Christmas Carol has very definite steampunk design elements, but it can be seen in the series as far back as Pyramids of Mars.

The other big inspiration is the film Zulu, also 1964, which revolved around the Battle of Rorke's Drift, fought in January 1879. Some 150 British soldiers defended a mission station from a Zulu army, numbering in the thousands, over a two day period. 11 Victoria Crosses were later awarded. The soldiers in Empress of Mars wear the same uniforms (those of the 24th Regiment of Foot and the Royal Engineers), as it is stated that they too have come from the African continent after finding Friday there. (Friday is the third Ice Warrior to have crash-landed on Earth - so I don't think much of their piloting skills...).

Gatiss also claimed to have been inspired by Victorian adventurers in Journey to the Centre of the Earth (filmed in 1959), and the movie adaptation of At The Earth's Core (1976), which featured a very Dr. Who-like performance by Peter Cushing.

Another obvious inspiration would be Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars, who features in a whole series of stories, the first of which was A Princess of Mars (serialised in 1912), which presumably inspired the episode's title. Queen Victoria was also known as Empress of India during her reign, so the Empress of the title could refer to her as well as Iraxxa.

The Ice Warriors having Hives on their homeworld came from a throwaway line in Gatiss' own Robot of Sherwood.

The imagery of the Warriors emerging from these was inspired by Tomb of the Cybermen.

The portrait of Queen Victoria in the army camp depicts Pauline Collins as the monarch rather than an image of the real Victoria, she having played her in Tooth and Claw.

The character of Captain Catchpole was derived from Harry Flashman, the school bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays - written by Thomas Hughes in 1857. He later appeared as an adult in a series of novels by George MacDonald Fraser. Gatiss was specifically thinking of Flashman as he appears in Flashman and the Tiger (1999).

Gatiss found Godsacre's name on a tombstone in a Dorset graveyard. He is said to have "danced the Newgate jig" - a reference to the fact that criminals were publicly hanged at Newgate Prison from the late 18th Century until 1868.

Jackdaw was inspired by Dickens' Bill Sykes (Oliver Twist) and Vincey got his name from a character in H Rider Haggard's She.

Next time: Stone the crows! There's Romans, in the gloamin'...

TARDISMusings Is Back From Holiday...

A week in Italy and another in London, but back home now. I will be posting again regularly from tomorrow (Thursday 1st October), with The Invasion (7) following on Sunday.

I don't appear to have missed any news while I was away, other than this tendering business, which states that the BBC want to see a new series ready for 2028/9. Whilst there are some who would welcome the series back tomorrow, there are many who might want to see a longer break before they attempt a relaunch.

Episode 225: The Invasion (6)

Synopsis:

Jamie, Zoe and Isobel have found themselves trapped in the sewers. There are two Cybermen further along one stretch of tunnel, who have just witnessed killing a policeman - and they see another lurching towards them from the opposite direction...

This is the Cyberman driven insane by exposure to the Cerebratron Mentor, however, and it staggers past.

Captain Turner has arrived, and he descends into the sewers accompanied by Sergeant Walters, Corporal Benton and Private Perkins.

They shout out, but Jamie and the others don't want to reply as it will alert the Cybermen to their presence. They stand between them and their rescuers.

The two Cybermen approach the UNIT party, who are about to defend themselves when the deranged unit emerges from the gloom and begins to attack the others.

Turner orders his men to attack using grenades, but Perkins panics and tries to flee. He is shot down by the Cybermen. The grenades are thrown and two of the creatures are destroyed - but the third begins to rise.

Jamie and the others are urged to run towards Turner before it can recover fully, and everyone ascends a ladder up to street level, emerging through a manhole. The damaged Cyberman pursues them and seizes Jamie by the leg. Corporal Benton throws another grenade down into the manhole after Jamie has broken free.

The Brigadier is with the Doctor in the laboratory at Watkins' home. The latter still cannot work out the function of the strange circuits found in all IE equipment. The Brigadier is waiting for Isobel's photographs before flying to Geneva to force some action against Vaughn.

She arrives with her freshly developed prints - but the Brigadier is less than impressed. He points out that they could be construed as fakes - an observation she is forced to agree with.

Packer is reporting to Vaughn about the incident in the sewers, but he is unconcerned. Even if UNIT attempt anything, it will be too late. He looks out over London, relishing the fact that he will soon control it along with the rest of the planet.

Gregory and Watkins are summoned to report progress on the Cerebratron Mentor. It now has directional control and more power, and the professor is appalled that his work has been transformed into a weapon. Vaughn decides to test it by blasting Watkins with crippling fear. Gregory stops him from going too far, which infuriates his employer. He argues that they need the professor unharmed to help produce copies of the machine, but Vaughn is already aware of this.

Watkins recovers and vows to kill Vaughn if given the opportunity. Vaughn orders Packer to hand the professor his gun, then goads him into shooting him. He fires into his chest at point blank range - but Vaughn is unharmed. He simply laughs as Watkins faints at his feet.

In the laboratory, Jamie sleeps as Isobel talks with Turner, recognising the folly of her expedition into the sewers. She has now heard the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe tell the Brigadier all about the Cybermen.

UNIT have had their communications relayed to the house, and a report comes in that Watkins is being transferred by two armed IE men, accompanied by Gregory. 

Isobel urges the Brigadier to intervene and rescue her uncle, and the Doctor agrees as he could do with the professors' help. Turner is ordered to mount a rescue mission.

A short time later, a battered and bruised Gregory is reporting the freeing of the professor in a UNIT ambush to Vaughn. He insists that, given time, he can get the Mentor into production - but Vaughn knows this highly unlikely.

Packer takes Gregory down to the sewers, where he is executed by Cybermen.

Watkins is unable to tell the Doctor anything about the micro-monolithic circuits, but is able to describe his own machine in more detail. The Doctor realises that Vaughn intends to use it against the Cybermen, rather than as a weapon to help them. He then deduces that the mysterious circuits are emotional circuits - artificial nervous systems - which will be employed to paralyse the population of Earth and so allow the Cybermen to invade unopposed.

He demonstrates on paper how the Cybermen have a spaceship located on the dark side of the Moon. It will move around to the side facing the Earth and beam a signal at the planet's communications satellites - which will then broadcast the Cyber-hypnotic force across the globe via the circuits.

They realise that the invasion could begin at any moment, and the only defence will be a depolariser worn at the back of the neck. They begin searching the lab for neuristors with which to make a batch, so they at least can be protected.

With one hour to go, Vaughn is in his office, making final preparations with the Cyber-Director.

With thirty minutes to go, the Doctor's party are still trying to make more depolarisers.

Turner and Isobel are watching as dawn breaks over the city. They suddenly hear a strange electronic tone and go to alert the others - but all can now hear it. The streets of the city are relatively quiet at this time of the morning, but those few who are out and about begin to collapse into a catatonic state due to the alien signal. The Doctor realises that his depolariser has fallen off, and collapses before the others can help.

Across central London, Cybermen begin to emerge from the sewers onto the streets.

Unopposed, they march relentlessly through the city...

Data:

Written by Derrick Sherwin (from a story by Kit Pedler)

Recorded: Friday 25th October 1968 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.15pm, Saturday 7th December 1968

Ratings: 6.5 million / AI 56

VFX: Bill King & Trading Post

Designer: Richard Hunt

Director: Douglas Camfield 

Additional cast: Stacy Davies (Perkins), Pat Gorman, Derek Chafer, Charles Finch, John Spradbury, Terence Denville, Ralph Carrigan (Cybermen)

Critique: 

Captain Turner was originally to have had another soldier named Harris with him, who was wounded by shrapnel from an exploding grenade.

The biggest change to the episode, from script to broadcast version, was the ambush by UNIT which freed Watkins. This was to have been a location sequence, using a country road rather than a London street. The professor is in an IE car with Gregory and a couple of security guards, and they are being tailed by Benton in another car. He radios ahead to Turner, who is sitting in a jeep further along the road, accompanied by three UNIT soldiers. The jeep pulls out in front of the IE car, with Benton blocking it from reversing. A gunfight then ensues as Watkins runs towards Turner. Gregory is about to shoot him in the back but is himself shot and wounded by Benton. The IE guards then ran off into the woods.

This was followed by a scene at Vaughn's office as Gregory reported back. In this instance, Vaughn was not unduly upset as he knew that Watkins could be recaptured in a few hour's time when the Cybermen activated their hypnotic signal.

The sequence was planned to be shot on Friday 13th September - the last day of location work, when production had moved to Ealing Studios. Douglas Camfield ran out of time, and so this action set-piece had to be dropped. Derrick Sherwin then added the brief sequence in which Gregory is killed by Cybermen in the sewers, in order to give Ian Fairbairn a decent death scene.

The montage of people being affected by the signal was to have included a milkman and a paper boy.

A number of photographs were taken of London locations on the morning of Saturday 7th September, to be used as establishing shots of the deserted city at dawn. This included Australia House at Aldwych.

Filming for the episode centred on the climactic scenes of the Cybermen launching their invasion in Central London. This took place on the morning of Sunday 8th September, commencing at 8.30am to try to avoid onlookers. As it was, word got out and Camfield found himself falling behind schedule to the crowds which built up.

The filming took place primarily around St Paul's Cathedral - St Peter's Hill and the adjoining Knightrider Street, which is the lane with a pub at the corner along which the Cybermen are seen to march (see images below).

Permission had been given to remove some of the manhole covers, which were replaced with lightweight props for the Cybermen to cast aside.

That afternoon the scenes on Fore Street, Moorgate, were filmed - of the UNIT rescue party arriving then departing with Jamie, Zoe and Isobel from the manhole. Pat Gorman played the Cyberman who attacks Jamie and has to be fought off with a grenade. You can see that his arm has extra padding, for when he is hit with a rifle butt.

A small number of extras were filmed on Distaff Lane and Queen Victoria Street (at St Nicholas Cole Abbey church and the College of Arms) - victims of the Cyberman hypnotic signal. These included a char lady, a window cleaner and a City gent, as well as a man slumped forward over the steering wheel of his car (an uncredited Derrick Sherwin).

It had been hoped to film the Cybermen at other famous landmarks, including Tower Bridge, Hyde Park, the Houses of Parliament and emerging from a number of Underground stations, but Camfield ran out of time as work had to be completed by 4pm.

Stacy Davies was a late replacement for actor Tony Wright, who had originally been booked to play Private Perkins.

The Cybermen were first seen to carry their guns in this episode - though they couldn't be used in studio as they fired a smoke charge which produced a burst of flame. They could only be used on location for safety reasons. These Cyberguns were the work of Bill King's company.

The battle in the sewer was accomplished mainly off camara through sound effects as it was being mounted in studio.

Two specially blurred photographs had been taken of Cybermen, representing Isobel's failed efforts to capture them on film.

Kevin Stoney agreed with Edward Burnham that his slap to the face should look as realistic as possible, and it certainly shows on screen.

One recording break was to allow Stoney to change his shirt from the pristine version to the one with smoking bullet holes.

The static images of deserted London locations were turned into slide captions, some of them supplied by the Visnews agency.

The end credits rolled over footage of the Cybermen marching along Knightrider Street.

If anything, it is the most iconic image from the classic era of Doctor Who. You can talk about Daleks on Westminster Bridge - but that was only a publicity photograph and the scene never actually appeared in the programme in that form.

Cybermen marching down the steps of St Paul's Cathedral is so iconic it was not only recreated for the 30th Anniversary documentary, using 1980's versions, but it reappeared in the series itself - in the closing moments of Dark Water.

Fans of a certain age were first introduced to the image above through Terrance Dicks' Doctor Who Monster Book (Target, 1975), a double page spread introducing the section "Monsters Who Came Back For More".

Of course, the Cybermen don't actually march down the steps of the cathedral itself until the Capaldi story. They're really a short distance away on St Peter's Hill, which ran down towards the Thames from St Paul's Churchyard. It is now simply Peter's Hill. The area has been heavily redeveloped, and it's now the pedestrianised route to the Millennium Bridge.

It is unfortunate that Camfield ran out of time and was unable to capture the Cybermen at other London landmarks, and the image of them emerging from the Underground would have been a striking one.

After the opening sequence in the sewers, neither of the Doctor's companions has much of a role to play in this episode. Indeed, Jamie actually falls asleep at one point whilst the Doctor discusses events with the Brigadier. The Doctor himself has very little to do this week, with Troughton only featuring in a handful of scenes, all in the professor's home laboratory. (It's a bit of a coincidence that Watkins just happens to be an expert in both the means to destroy Cybermen, and the means by which they intend to attack the Earth).

We see instead the beginning of a romance between Captain Turner and Isobel, and an excellent scene between Vaughn and Watkins - the one with the ferocious slap from Stoney which practically knocks Burnham off his feet. One slight problem with this sequence is, of course, the fact that Vaughn has a cybernetic body - but presumably only from the neck down. It was very lucky that Watkins chose to shoot him in the chest and not in the head. (Either that or he is cybernetic from head to toe, so didn't care where the professor shot him).

If they had managed to film the rescue sequence, how would they have fitted it in? The episode as it stands runs to 23' 20" - the shortest of the eight - but the UNIT ambush as written would surely have taken us up to or over the 25 minute mark. I suspect that it was this scene between Vaughn and Watkins which might have been expanded to make up for the missing material. It's a character scene, not vital to the plot. We already know that Vaughn has a cybernetic body as he said so in the last episode - "My body may be cybernetic but my mind remains human. That is final!".

The scene of Gregory's demise in the sewers is very rushed - so much so that one guidebook even questioned if it was Ian Fairbairn who appears, claiming it doesn't look like him.

It's a pity that the UNIT ambush sequence had to be dropped. It would have added some extra action, but this episode has already gone down in Doctor Who history for its closing moments.

Trivia:

• The ratings see only a slight dip in viewers, but there is a small improvement in the appreciation figure.
• Derek Chafer had previously played a Cyberman in The Moonbase.
• Ian Marter reinstated the rescue of Watkins for the Target novelisation - a sequence which ends with Gregory being shot dead by Benton.
• The first of two movie-style posters for this story by the talented Oliver Arkinstall-Jones:

TARDISMusings Is On Holiday...

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I'm off on back-to-back holidays after today and won't be posting regularly until the beginning of October. The Invasion (6) is scheduled to post automatically this Sunday (13th).

I do have a couple of other things ready to go, but am saving them for when I get back so that the first week or so is already covered.

TARDIS Log: Marco Polo

Where and when:

The TARDIS has materialised on the Plain of Pamir in the snowy foothills of the Himalayas. As the Doctor informs his companions of the predicament they are in - the complete failure of the ship's electrical systems - they decide to look for fuel for a fire. They encounter instead a Tartar warlord named Tegana and his men. Fearing they are evil spirits, Tegana is on the point of having them killed when they are saved by the intervention of a European man - whom Barbara recognises as the Venetian explorer Marco Polo.

The year is 1289, and Polo is returning to Cathay from a diplomatic mission. He is bringing Tegana to meet with his employer - the mighty Kublai Khan - so that a peace agreement can be reached between him and Tegana's liege Noghai. Polo is also escorting a young girl from Samarkand - Ping-Cho - for an arranged marriage to one of the Khan's elderly councillors.

Polo wishes to leave the Khan's service and return home to Venice, but isn't having much luck persuading him to let him go. He has become too valuable a servant. On learning of the "flying caravan" of the strangers, he hits upon the idea of presenting it to the Khan as a gift - one which will finally secure his release from duty.

The TARDIS is loaded onto a cart which then proceeds on a lengthy journey across the Plain, the Gobi Desert and on into Cathay, stopping off at various way stations on the route.

Initially they are making for Shang-Tu, where the Khan has his summer palace (an inspiration for poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Xanadu). However, a despatch rider intercepts the caravan and informs Polo that the venue for the meeting with Kublai Khan is now his capital at Peking.

The entire journey overland from the Plain of Pamir to Peking takes around three months.

At Peking it is revealed that Tegana actually intends to assassinate the Khan, with Noghai's army massing on the border ready to invade. Marco defeats him in a duel, but Tegana kills himself rather than face capture.

That Marco Polo and Kublai Khan existed as historical figures is beyond doubt. The latter was the grandson of Genghis Khan, and became the first ruler of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. Born in 1215, he ruled from 1271 until his death in 1294.

Marco Polo was born in Venice c.1254. In 1271 he accompanied his father and uncle on a journey to Cathay, following the Silk Road, for the purposes of trade.

He quickly became a favourite of Kublai Khan due to his organisational skills, and was sent on various missions of a diplomatic or military nature.

In 1291 he escorted a princess named Kokochin to Persia - the inspiration for Ping-Cho's role in this story - and after safely delivering her he then travelled on to Venice, via Constantinople. By the time he got home, he had been away for 24 years.

His homecoming coincided with war between Venice and Genoa. Polo fought for his city state but was taken prisoner. It was whilst in captivity that he narrated his story to his cellmate Rustichello da Pisa - and this is where some doubt creeps in...

His cellmate was the one who actually wrote the book The Travels of Marco Polo (also known as The Book of Marvels of the World) - and it is widely believed that he used a certain amount of poetic licence in the narrative - wishing, naturally, to present a best-seller. The overall history is generally accepted, but some of the specific incidents may have been fabricated to liven up the narrative.

There is certainly no mention of a strange Doctor or his magical blue flying caravan. Perhaps Rustichello thought this was pushing the fantasy too far to include, or Marco simply decided to keep this part of his adventures to himself.

After his release from prison, Marco Polo went on to enjoy a successful mercantile career in his home city, dying in January 1324. He is buried in the Church of San Lorenzo.

Unseen journeys:

Susan has seen the metal seas of Venus - but has never seen a moonlit night. She must mean "like this one" surely. She lived in London for five months and has been to other times in Earth's history and to other planets. One explanation might be that her over-protective grandfather only ever allowed her to go to the school and confined her to the safety of the TARDIS at all other times - which might go some way to explaining her lack of knowledge about British currency in 1963.

The TARDIS:

Despite the interior of the TARDIS only featuring in three short scenes, the ship does have a significant role to play in Marco Polo. It is, after all, purloined by the Venetian adventurer so that he can give it to Kublai Khan as a present. The Doctor and his companions are denied access to it, other than when he and Susan are permitted to sleep in it for one night during their trek across the Gobi Desert.

The TARDIS had materialised in a snowy landscape at the end of the previous story, and some time seemed to have passed before the travellers go outside to explore - after Susan and Barbara find what appears to be the footprint of a giant.

The Doctor goes back inside the ship, then emerges moments later to announce that there has been a failure in one of the key components. This is the 2LO circuit, which has burnt itself out. 

It is a vital part of the ship's electrical systems, and without it they have no heating or light. The Doctor also states that they won't have any water either, so presumably its loss means that the Food Machine has no independent power source. (It also implies that the TARDIS has no kitchen or bathrooms, unless they too are electrically powered).

The Doctor has Susan go into the TARDIS to fetch the circuit out to him, and he thinks it unlikely that he will be able to repair it before nightfall. It appears to be a chunky black box, full of wiring.

After examining it, the Doctor announces that he will have to make a new one, and this could take days.

It's another vital component, like the Fluid Link, for which the Doctor has no spares.

The TARDIS appears to have some form of altimeter, as the Doctor is able to state that they are several thousand feet above sea level (though this may simply be the result of his visual observation of the terrain and an assessment of the oxygen levels).

Marco Polo takes the Doctor's key - and he hasn't gotten round to making a new one for Susan yet (lost when used to sabotage the Dalek city's surveillance systems). He will make a new key, in a single night, whilst they are stopped at an oasis. He uses it to sneak into the TARDIS to repair the 2LO circuit, until Marco finds out and the ship becomes too well guarded.

In reference to the 21-barrel lock mentioned in The Daleks, the Doctor does warn Polo not to use the key himself. (The odd thing is that Polo never once shows any interest in seeing the inside of the "flying caravan" which he sees as key - no pun intended - to his release from service. Not once does he insist on being shown the interior).

The TARDIS can be lifted onto, and carried by, a wooden cart, drawn by a single horse. Its weight must therefore equate to that of whatever it currently resembles.

As mentioned, the Doctor and Susan are permitted to spend a night in the TARDIS when they are in the middle of the desert. The caravan's water supply has been sabotaged by Tegana, and the nearest oasis is a day's ride away.

Unfortunately, we don't get to see the Doctor's sleeping place. The episodes are lost, and the only telesnaps of this brief scene are two close-ups of the Doctor's face as water drips on it. There's simply a black background. All we do know is that Susan is sleeping next to him, as he tells her to wake up and fetch some means to capture the water. The suggestion is that he is in her room, sleeping on the bed that Barbara was using.

The Doctor does sleep - so must have his own bedroom. That he is sharing here might simply be down to the fact that he has a touch of heatstroke and Susan wants to keep an eye on him.

The reason that water is forming inside the TARDIS is condensation. The ship's interior is being heated by the sun during the day, then cooling at night - meaning that the ship is susceptible to atmospheric conditions outside its shell, despite it supposedly existing in a separate dimension. (The loss of power may be the reason for this, with some protective shielding also disabled).

The Doctor attempts to get the TARDIS back by playing backgammon with Kublai Khan. He starts off well, winning 35 elephants with ceremonial bridles, trappings, brocades and pavilions; 4000 white stallions; 25 tigers; the Sacred Tooth of Buddha; and all the commerce of Burma for one year. He then hits a losing streak and is left with only a piece of the Khan's new paper currency.

That Ulster coat which used to belong to Gilbert & Sullivan is left behind somewhere, but Ian, Barbara and Susan all depart with 13th Century Chinese silk outfits to add to the TARDIS wardrobe. 

Ian will like his so much he wears it for the next story...

Behind the Scenes:

The obvious starting point for this story would have been in the TARDIS console room, when it suffers its electrical breakdown. However, director Waris Hussein and designer Barry Newbery decided to use the limited space of Lime Grove Studio D to concentrate on the story-specific sets required for the opening episode.

The console room set is used only once throughout this entire seven episode story. This is for the sequence at the end of Rider From Shang-Tu, the fifth episode, when the travellers have gained access to the ship but are waiting for Susan to join them. We only have a couple of telesnaps from this scene also, and it looks like only one corner of the set was used, comprising a couple of walls. One has the roundels, whilst the other has a series of vertical lights and is actually a large rectangular pillar-like block which was used in several of the early stories.

Assassin at Peking closes with a shot of the Doctor and his companions standing around the console - but this is clearly set up in front of black drapes in a corner of the studio. Again, this would be due to the size and number of sets needed for the final episode. A star-scape is superimposed over this scene.

We can detect the hand of Story Editor David Whitaker throughout these early stories. There was no real need for the Doctor to take his hand-held radiation meter outside the TARDIS on arriving on prehistoric Earth - there's a built-in meter on the console after all - but it had to be disposed of before the travellers reached Skaro, otherwise The Daleks would have been a very short story indeed. Likewise, Susan had to lose her key in the Dalek city for this story to work. We know she had one as she let herself into the TARDIS on coming home from school before the Doctor got back. The plot relies on there being only a single key to the ship.

2.L.O. was the old BBC radio transmitter for London, based in Marconi House on the Strand. It got its name from being the second London radio licence issued by the Post Office. It began broadcasting in May 1922 under the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, before being operated by the BBC from November that year.

What's Wrong With... Dalek

Let's get the Cyberman out of the way first. There is a head in Van Statten's museum. The plaque states that it was found in the London sewers in 1977, implying that it's from The Invasion. But the design is actually the one seen in Revenge of the Cybermen, with the thicker ridged "handlebars".

Once upon a time we could have ridiculed the notion of a tech businessman owning the internet and having the power to influence Presidential elections... But not anymore. 

And talking of the internet, just think of all the stuff that Dalek has absorbed. It ought to be overloaded with cute puppy and kitten videos, as well as all the naughty stuff...

It should also know all about, and have access to, things like nuclear or biological weapons systems. Is it the Daleks' intention to go round exterminating people individually, when it could simply wipe out all the humans at once with these weapons?

Henry Van Statten gets the "Metaltron" at an auction, and it is stated that it has gone through several buyers already. Surely an organisation such as UNIT, which has had dealings with Daleks and knows exactly what they are, would have noticed this and intervened.

A problem with setting the story so little ahead in time (2012) is that no-one knows what a Dalek is - despite the Battle of Canary Wharf, invading the planet in The Stolen Earth, being around during World War II, and fighting UNIT in England in the early 1970's. There's a limit to what Steven Moffat's Crack in Time can cover, without the entire programme's history collapsing completely.

The Dalek was said to have been found on the Ascension Islands - which is a single island by the way, not a group. It was capable of making someone burst into flames just by getting close to it, so Van Statten has it imprisoned in a cell which has a stock of liquid oxygen right next door - a substance which can cause other materials to self-ignite if released into the atmosphere.

Van Statten places the Doctor in the cell in order to observe via CCTV how his pet reacts to another alien - but he then turns the lights out.

It is also odd that whilst someone like Clive in Rose can know something about the Doctor, and Mickey begins blogging about him, the man who owns the internet - and who claims to be an expert on aliens - doesn't know the first thing about him.

Van Statten's museum is in Utah, and the Dalek drains all the power from the western seaboard of the United States - but not that of the state it is actually in or the one in between it and the area affected.

Van Statten might just possess a rubbish map, as five of the New England states have been merged into one, and half of Michigan is missing.

The Dalek has a gun. When it gets to the bottom of the stairs it stops and thinks for a moment before levitating - but why didn't it use that time to simply shoot the people in plain view who are taunting it from the landing above?

Later on it gets stopped by a closed vault door - despite having the firepower to blast a hole through reinforced concrete only a few minutes later. It has been seen to be able to tap into the complex's CCTV - so why not simply override the door controls?

Once upon another time, a Dalek shell was supposed to be a life-support system as well as an armoured travel machine. From this episode onwards they will be popping out of their shells with alarming frequency, as though they no longer need them to survive.

(Personally, I think the episode shows too much too soon, and would rather they had held back the appearance of the mutant for another time. They feel they have to explain everything. The plunger does this, the balls on the skirt do that, this is what's inside...).

Finally, what's the timeframe at the end? The whole complex is about to be flooded with cement, but Adam still hasn't evacuated yet. It looks like the Doctor and Rose have gone straight to the TARDIS after the destruction of the Dalek - so where did all that cement spring from if no time has passed?