TARDIS Log: An Unearthly Child

Where and When:

The story begins with the TARDIS in London - standing in a junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane, which is close to Coal Hill School. We know it is London as Ian says so in The Cave of Skulls.

But where is the Coal Hill district?

We will find out later, but for now the exact part of the city is unclear. All we have to go on is when the local area appears on the scanner as the ship takes off. Large buildings, in crescents and terraces can be seen. As the programme is made in West London, we could be forgiven for thinking that's where Totter's Lane is situated. (Things aren't helped by the fact that the BBC's most famous junkyard at the time - at 26a Oil Drum Lane and home to Steptoe and Son - is located in Shepherd's Bush). However, these buildings look more like office blocks than the residential terraces and crescents of areas like Notting Hill or Ladbroke Grove.

For now, all we can say is that it is probably in the inner suburbs of the city.

As for the 'When', Ian also states that the year is 1963 in the second episode. We can work out from the homework on Ian's blackboard that it is a Thursday when he and Barbara first enter the TARDIS. The Science homework is for Tuesday and Thursday in that order - so those are the days on which Susan attends this class. It can't be a Friday anyway as Susan says she'll return the borrowed book the next day.

If this was a Tuesday, then the homework would have been for Thursday first, and then for the following Tuesday - so this must be Thursday. Barbara's classroom also has History homework set for a Tuesday.

The month is harder to pin down. We know it is winter as it is dark so soon after school finishes (4pm in those days). We're looking at October to February as most likely, and it tends to be accepted that it is November as that is when the series started.

A potential issue with that is Susan's mention of the last five months being the happiest of her life, straight after stating that she loves the school. Is she talking about staying in London in general, or is she specifically referring to that time spent at the school?

As the new school year would have begun in September, she can't be saying that she's been at the school for five months if it's only November - unless she joined around Easter and spent the school summer holiday in London before rejoining Coal Hill for the Autumn term.

One other option is that this isn't the end of the year at all, but the beginning of 1963 (February perhaps) - which would allow her to have attended the school for the whole five months.

The problem with this is Ian and Barbara. Surely they would have questioned Susan's odd behaviour before now, if they've been teaching her for five months?

One explanation could be that they are the newcomers - just joined the school in a recent intake of new staff. That might explain the way they seem to have bonded, and don't involve any other teachers or the headmaster in their concerns about Susan.

A problem of this being the start of the year is the Big Freeze of 1963 - which lasted through January and February and saw many school closures.

(One other issue about Susan's mention of a five month residency in London, whether in general or at the school, is how could she not have known that the UK used pounds, shillings and pence before now?).

At the end of the opening episode, the TARDIS makes its first televised journey. It is no longer in the junkyard, but sitting on a scrubby plain. It is observed by a man dressed in animal skins. Ian and Barbara discover that the sand is near freezing.

The TARDIS has a "year-o-meter", but this isn't working - it registers "Zero". Writer Anthony Coburn stated in a draft script that the ship had travelled in time only - some 195,000 years. David Whitaker also used this date in paperwork. But Coburn and the production team gave the story an overall title of "100,000 BC". The Doctor also states that they have gone back in time, and he'll know when once he's collected a few samples - so as far as he is concerned this is prehistoric Earth.

As the instruments aren't working properly, and he will be shown to be an unreliable navigator, we have to take his word that this is not actually some alien planet where a similar humanoid race has evolved (Mondas, anyone?).

Assuming it is Earth, as the tribespeople are clearly Homo Sapiens then it can't be more than 40,000 years ago. If it is an Ice Age which is approaching, then the last was around 10,000 years ago. It's unlikely that the tribe would have survived very long without fire, so it is more likely that Za's father died only recently and it is winter which is approaching. But then Horg goes and talks about fire and meat joining together as though it was some distant memory...

One other theory to consider is that this is not the past at all, but the far future, when humans have degenerated following some great cataclysm that has thrown civilisation back to a new Stone Age.

The TARDIS must have moved geographically as well as through time, as the London area was mostly marshland in prehistoric times, and there's no evidence of this sort of terrain. Indeed, there is much talk of a mountain near the cave of the tribe, if the cave itself isn't part of the mountain instead of some rocky outcrop. (It's odd that the tribe don't use the Cave of Skulls as a living space, as it ought to be warmer and provide better protection - but then palaeontologists and archaeologists have argued for years about 'Ritual' in prehistoric societies, and it is simply the place of their ancestors).

We learn quite quickly that the Doctor and Susan haven't come to London straight from their home planet. Susan mentions that the ship has disguised itself as a sedan chair and an ionic column in the past. This suggests two potential trips into Earth history - though they would have had such columns in the days of sedan chairs, what with the neo-classical architectural movement. 

Then there's her reaction to the book on the French Revolution which she is borrowing - implying she has first hand knowledge of the event. Not necessarily a third previous trip, as they would have had both sedan chairs and ionic columns in late 18th Century French cities.

The TARDIS makes its second televised journey at the end of the story - but we'll talk about that next time.

The TARDIS:

In outward appearance, the TARDIS resembles a Police Public Call Box, blue in colour and with white window surrounds and emergency instruction panel. When Ian touches it, he feels a strange vibration, as though it's alive. (He may mean live, as in having electrical power, as he walks all round it and states that it doesn't appear to be connected to anything - unless it's through the floor).

Susan seems unaware that her teachers are prowling around outside, but then she's wearing different clothes and is probably off changing - so there has to be a living space with a wardrobe somewhere.

The Doctor opens the door with an ordinary Yale-style key.

It can also be opened from within as Susan opens it - allowing Barbara to push her way in.

Within, the dimensions are far greater than the exterior box would suggest. 

Susan is standing in the middle of a brightly lit, futuristic space, next to a six-sided control console topped by a glass or clear plastic cylinder. The panels are covered in buttons and switches.

Various bits of furniture, some practical, some purely decorative, are dotted about.

(The Doctor places his coat and scarf on a chair, and the scarf falls on the floor. Perhaps he should get a nice hatstand one of these days...).

Most of the walls, as well as the doors, are covered in large inset roundels.

The ship has a faulty filament, but the Doctor has found what he thinks to be a suitable replacement - though it is amateurish by his standards.

He instructs Susan to close the wide double doors using one of the controls on the console.

(Presumably bewildered by all this, Ian claims to have seen the Doctor do this).

The Doctor then explains that this is a time machine, and Susan claims to have made up the name 'TARDIS' from the initials of "Time And Relative Dimension In Space". (Note the singular of Dimension).

As far as we know this craft is unique, but the Doctor didn't necessarily build it himself - otherwise why not replace the filament with one of his own manufacture?

The Doctor and Susan state that they come from another world, so the TARDIS is not of human construction.

One of the controls allows at least one part of the console, or a specific switch, to become electrified - presumably some sort of defence mechanism to prevent unauthorised use.

The Doctor pilots the TARDIS from the console, a process involving operating several controls.

He and Susan then look up at a scanner, resembling a TV screen, which is suspended about 8 feet above floor level against the wall opposite the doors. This wall is fronted by glass panels, behind which are instruments.

This shows a cityscape receding, as though the ship is flying up into the sky. 

This first ever take-off will be like no other, as it renders the teachers unconscious - and even the Doctor and Susan appear physically discomfited by the process. The take-off is accompanied by a loud mechanical wheezing-groaning sound, as well as various electronic beeps and bleeps.

The lights dim, and a mechanism within the glass cylinder glows as it begins to rise and fall.

Could this debilitating take-off be the result of that make-do replacement filament?

The effect on Ian and Barbara appears to be only momentary - for the TARDIS reaches it's destination very quickly.

The light level returns to normal.

The Doctor has Susan take some environmental readings from the console, but he decides to bring a handheld radiation meter with him when he goes out to explore.

The open double doors lead directly to the new landscape outside. What then does Barbara see when she steps outside and looks back inside the ship? (Note the exterior of the doors are patterned like the interior of the ship, and not like a Police Box).

From the outside there are only the narrow Police Box doors, and people are only seen to emerge through one of these (the one without the instruction panel and telephone cabinet).

Susan is surprised to see that the TARDIS still looks like a Police Box - something which irritates the Doctor as it suggests something else to be repaired.

The implication is that it is only from this point on that the TARDIS will be stuck in this shape, and it has always camouflaged itself on landing before this (see above).

The portable radiation meter gets damaged when Kal abducts the Doctor, and Susan finds his notebook which she claims contains vital information about the ship's operations - codes for different machines.

This suggests that the Doctor is not entirely familiar with the ship - or, as Susan states, he's simply becoming forgetful. It's another hint that he did not build the TARDIS.

At the end of the story we see how the TARDIS travels, when it dematerialises - fading away before the startled eyes of Za and his men.

It again arrives swiftly at its next destination - and we'll talk about its dodgy built-in radiation meter next time...

What is most significant is the Doctor's statement that the TARDIS "...isn't operating properly. Or rather, the code is still a secret" - which pretty much confirms that he cannot have built it.

He goes on to say that if you feed in precise data at the beginning of a journey, then you can set your destination - but in this instance he did not have the information he needed.

When Ian asks him outright if he can fly the TARDIS, the Doctor says "Well of course I can't. I'm not a miracle worker".

Behind The Scenes:

We discussed the creation of the set in the Origins post. The main thing to note here is that Peter Brachacki was hospitalised not long after the pilot episode was made, and designer Barry Newbery took over - though he stuck faithfully to Brachacki's designs for the opening episode.

Most changes between the pilot and broadcast versions of An Unearthly Child were to do with character and dialogue, though there were slight changes made to the TARDIS. One of the photographic blow-up walls was replaced, and the furniture rearranged, but the biggest difference was in the soundscape.

There is a loud, intrusive hum in the TARDIS throughout the pilot, which they got rid of for the second version. It would have been very annoying to have retained this throughout.

The dematerialisation sound is also simplified, with a lot less beeps and bleeps.

Tom Chadbon1946 - 2026

On Monday the internet began reporting that actor Tom Chadbon had passed away a few days before, but the news wasn't confirmed until yesterday. He was 80.

To Doctor Who fans he will always be remembered as the bullish private detective Duggan in the classic City of Death.

He returned to the programme for the opening story of Season 23 - Trial of a Time Lord (1 - 4) aka The Mysterious Planet. In this he played the train guard commander Merdeen.

He also featured in audio Doctor Who, including a regular role in the Sarah Jane Smith range.

Beyond the programme, another significant sci-fi role was as Del Grant in the Blake's 7 episode "Countdown". A mercenary, he sought to kill Avon as he blamed him for abandoning his sister to die. This was a role he reprised on audio.

He had regular roles in comedy series The Liver Birds and in Casualty, but also made guest appearances in numerous British drama series - as well as an episode of Game of Thrones ("The Dragon and the Wolf" in Season 7).

On the big screen, he appeared in Polanski's Tess, the 2006 Bond movie Casino Royale, and he also featured opposite Peter Cushing as one of the suspects in the guess-the-werewolf film The Beast Must Die (1974).

Bye, bye Duggan! - RIP

What's Wrong With... The End of the World

It's Rose's first proper trip in the TARDIS. So what does the Doctor think might be an appropriate destination? Lunch at the Ritz with Oscar Wilde? Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Rings of Akhaten? No, let's show her the total obliteration of her planet... Hardly a First Date destination, surely.

If the Doctor knows precisely when the Earth will be destroyed - even down to the minute - then why doesn't he know about Platform One and what happens there that day? Where was he intending to land if not on the Platform in the first place?

The psychic paper gets introduced. A lot of people didn't like this, thinking it made things way too easy for the Doctor - though certainly not abused as much as the Sonic Screwdriver will be. Truth be told, with whole stories running to just 45 minutes, it gets him into the action quickly. He'd be locked up for most of every episode otherwise.

The Steward introduces the aliens as they arrive, and we get to see them walk (or trundle) through the doors of the reception hall. He continues to announce arrivals once the camera concentrates on the Doctor and Rose and their dialogue - but we don't see anyone else in the room save for the ones he introduced...

Cassandra is a flap of skin, eyes, mouth and brain. But she speaks. Where's the voice box? Where are the lungs?

Her plan is apparently to engineer a hostage situation, but involves sending robotic spiders out to cause irreparable damage to the Platform which will only lead to its destruction. How exactly was the hostage part of her plan to be done? She mentions compensation, so presumably suing the company which operates Platform One. They'd have to prove some sort of negligence, which could tie them all up in court for a very very long time - and she doesn't seem the sort of person who has a lot of patience when it comes to money for her cosmetic surgeries.

Also, she'd have to have stayed on the Platform to be amongst the survivors making the claim...

She then goes on to say that she has bought shares in the companies of all the attendees, as though their deaths will make her rich. But if a whole bunch of incredibly wealthy individuals died all at the same time, their deaths would probably have the opposite effect - crashing their company share price. The cumulative effect of so many high profile deaths might even crash the whole galactic economy.

Even with the teleport power booster hidden in an ostrich egg, technology can go wrong - so it's a very risky thing she does, to begin sabotaging the Platform whilst she's still on it.

It's said to be a classic Earth, yet there's a desert in the Arctic. When - and why - did the National Trust rearrange the continents, if the planet only has a relatively short time left before it's destroyed? A bit of a waste of time and money, surely. Cassandra says her father is buried in the Arctic Desert, so this classic Earth can't be all that old.

One of the nicest little character moments, which then goes on to set up the main threat from the spiders, is Rose's meeting with Raffalo, the plumbing engineer from Crespallion. And it wasn't in the original script. It was added as padding when the episode was found to be under running.

Raffalo is fixing the hot water for the Face of Boe's suite. He lives in a big tank of smoke - so what does he need hot water for exactly?

The Doctor speaks to Jabe about nautical allusions and it is suggested that he was on the Titanic when it sank, whereas just last week we saw him saving a family from going on its maiden voyage (presumably not going himself either). It may refer to two quite separate incidents with the doomed liner but, coming only a week apart, it looks contradictory.

A big one. The safety glass begins to break in the gallery where Rose is - enough to scorch the back wall. If this really is the case, then the ambient temperature in that room should be astronomically high - enough to cook her alive. Yet she hardly breaks a sweat. She doesn't even take off her jacket.

On the same subject, the Doctor is in a chamber hot enough for wood to combust. He may have some special Time Lord gift when it comes to tolerance to extremes of heat - but his clothes shouldn't have.

And whose idea was it to have those great big fans slicing across the only path to the all important computer controls? We see that the fans are in a gigantic chamber, so why not have them raised safely above the platform level - or even have them positioned one above the other rather than in a row like this?

Using air conditioning to cool a structure in space, where there is no air, is a stupid idea anyway. Wouldn't some sort of refrigeration / chemical coolant system have been more sensible?

Episode 218: The Mind Robber (4)

Synopsis:

The Doctor and Zoe have returned to the central chamber of the labyrinth where they are confronted by a statue of the Gorgon Medusa. It stirs to life and slowly approaches - reaching out to touch Zoe on the cheek. She struggles to accept that this isn't real as she can feel it - and is compelled to look into its eyes...

The Doctor picks up a sword and is about to use it - then remembers that you can't kill something which doesn't exist. He has almost fallen into a trap. He recalls the story of Perseus and produces a hand mirror from his pocket. Zoe is able to see the creature's reflection and finally accepts that it is just a statue. It reverts to lifeless stone.

This has been witnessed in a way by Jamie via text on a ticker-tape machine in the Apparatus Room - a high-tech chamber in a citadel atop a cliff. The print-out suddenly begins to report that the test on the Doctor is cancelled as a failure.

He goes to leave the room by a staircase but triggers a photo-electric cell. An alarm sounds and a mesh barrier drops over the window. The Master announces that there are intruders in the building and calls for a search to be made.

Gulliver then reappears. He claims not to know the whereabouts of the Doctor and Zoe and states that a search must be made under the law of this land, and that by rights Jamie should be put to death. 

Jamie hears a familiar electronic noise approach and takes cover behind a panel - asking Gulliver not to give him away as he had with the Clockwork Soldiers in the forest of words.

This time it is a trio of White Robots who enter. Gulliver is unable to see them. Jamie emerges from hiding after they have gone, but finds himself still trapped.

The Doctor and Zoe have emerged from the labyrinth and are viewing the citadel.

A boulder nearby suddenly explodes as a masked, musclebound figure appears. He is armed with an anti-molecular disintegrator gun. When the Doctor dismisses the weapon as scientific nonsense, it vanishes - but the figure decides instead to physically tear him limb from limb.

Zoe recognises this figure as the Karkus, who is also fictional - but the Doctor has never heard of him and so initially struggles to accept this.

He ducks out of the way as the Karkus lunges towards him - and Zoe steps in to fight with him.

She quickly overpowers him and he is compelled now to obey them.

Zoe explains that the Karkus is a cartoon character from the hourly telepress of her time.

They order him to take them to the citadel, and soon arrive at its entrance.

The Karkus is dismissed, but the Doctor takes his cape and imitates his voice to gain access.

Jamie is arguing with Gulliver about the White Robots when he sees the Doctor and Zoe at the stairwell. He warns them about the alarm system and they jump over the photo-electric cell.

He then shows them the ticker-tape machine and explains how it narrated what was happening to them in the maze. The Doctor points out that when you write about something after it has happened, it is history - but to write about things which haven't happened yet is fiction. When his companions ask about getting out of here, the Doctor states that he has no intention of leaving. They are going to confront whoever is behind this domain.

Zoe panics at the thought of being turned into fiction and heads to the stairwell - triggering the alarm. They hear the White Robots approach - but the Doctor stands firm.

When they enter, the Doctor insists on being taken to the Master. 

A door slides opens and they hear a voice from within, inviting them inside.

They find themselves in the control centre, confronted by an elderly man in early 20th Century garb. He wears a skullcap, which is linked by wires to a large multi-sided machine which glows with power. White Robots stand guard.

The old man comes across as an amiable figure and explains that he is responsible for everything which happens here, which is a great strain. One day, in the summer of 1926, he fell asleep at his desk and woke to find himself here. He was the writer of the prolific "Captain Jack Harkaway" stories for a popular boy's weekly adventure periodical - The Ensign.

He wrote thousands of words every week for a quarter of a century - and it was this talent which caused him to be brought here. Occasionally the machine takes over and the Master's voice changes - becoming more mechanical - and the Doctor realises that he is little more than a slave to it. He seems content to be here, however, having access to every book ever written.

As the Doctor and Master talk, Jamie and Zoe slip away behind the machine - finding themselves in a vast library.

The Master explains that he is getting too old to run this domain - and he wants the Doctor to take his place as he is ageless. The machine - the Master Brain - needs someone with the human imagination to function.

The Doctor refuses to co-operate.

Jamie and Zoe are confronted by White Robots, which force them towards a gigantic open book. The Master begins to narrate what is happening to them as he writes it in a notebook in front of him.

Events in the library appear on a screen and the Doctor can only look on helplessly as the Robots begin to close over the book, threatening to crush Jamie and Zoe between its pages...

Data:

Written by Peter Ling

Recorded: Friday 12th July 1968 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.20pm, Saturday 5th October 1968

Ratings: 7.3 million / AI 56

VFX: Jack Kine & Bernard Wilkie

Designer: Evan Hercules

Director: David Maloney

Additional cast: Christopher Robbie (The Karkus)

Critique:

For this episode, Peter Ling introduced a spoof comic book superhero character, inspired by Batman (created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger for Detective Comics in March 1939). He was described as being a giant of a man, dressed in a black plastic catsuit with a cloak, and carrying a weird looking ray gun. He speaks with a "thick foreign accent".

In order to reduce the running time of the episode to 20 minutes or under - this one runs to 19' 14" - a scene between Jamie and Gulliver in the Apparatus Room was dropped entirely.

This episode would be recorded entirely in studio, with no filming material other than some animation effects which would be superimposed over the action.

Three of the White Robot costumes were brought back into use this week. Originally their role in this episode had been undertaken by the Clockwork Soldiers, but Derrick Sherwin had decided to replace them with the robots, who otherwise would only have featured in the white void.

Whilst it has been stated that the main inspiration for the Master was Frank Richards (pen name of Charles Hamilton), the creator of Billy Bunter, Ling would later claim that the character was as much inspired by himself. He felt that he was a prisoner of his own work demands - especially weekly serials he was contributing to the Eagle comic.

Emrys Jones continued to get into the light-hearted spirit of rehearsals with Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines by milking certain lines for their double-entendre value - such as "I have your dossiers here in front of me...".

Fight arranger BH Barry was booked for the week to work with Wendy Padbury and Christopher Robbie on their big fight scene, based around judo moves. Originally, it was intended that Zoe would give a running commentary on her moves as the fight progressed - learned from "mind training school" - but the actress was usually out of breath from the physical exertion and so these lines were dropped.

Robbie was primarily a theatre actor, who had also done some continuity announcement work for Anglia Television.

During camera rehearsals on the day of recording, publicity photographs were taken of Sue Pulford in her Medusa costume.

Camera Crew 5, who generally worked on the BBC's more prestigious plays and serials, were withdrawn this week for other duties and were replaced by Crew 6.

The reprise from the previous episode was altered slightly by reordering Jamie's scenes in the Apparatus Room.

The Citadel was established via a painting of a fairy tale castle atop a cliff.

A small flash charge was set off to indicate the arrival of the Karkus as he blew up a boulder. An animated star effect was superimposed over a fade between the empty set and then with Robbie in position. At one point David Maloney was going to drop this effect and simply have the Karkus standing there.

The disappearance of the anti-molecular disintegrator gun from his hand was achieved through camera cutting alone, with no requirement for a recording break.

During the big fight scene, Padbury realised that she had mistimed some her moves - evident on screen - and this rather threw the actress off her stride. As such she fumbled some her following dialogue with Troughton.

She would apologise for this to the director on the DVD commentary track.

A recording break allowed the regulars to move from the Apparatus Room to the control centre set. This was the first time it had been seen fully, and also properly introduced the Master of the Land of Fiction. Until now Jones had simply provided off screen voices or been seen briefly from the back.

He was seated in front of the Brain machine - a large rotating shape comprising Perspex hexagons, illuminated from within.

Maloney originally planned to use the positive / negative overexposure effect on Jamie and Zoe as they were trapped in the giant book - as he had intended for Episode 1. Instead, he opted to reuse the swirling concentric circle effect, generated by a lightbox, as had been seen when the White Robots used their weapons in that earlier instalment.

In later interviews, Maloney would state that he wasn't happy with the latter two episodes of this story as he felt there was too much dialogue and not enough incident, causing them to drag somewhat. The loss of his favoured camera crew may also have contributed towards his unhappiness.

The Master: "Won't you come in to my parlour...?"

The Doctor: "Said the spider to the fly..."

The Doctor and his companions finally reach the control centre of the Land of Fiction and confront the Master - and he turns out to be an amiable old man. He proudly shows them a copy of The Ensign (price tuppence) and eagerly tells them all about his career. The Doctor quickly realises that he is as much a prisoner as they are - enslaved to the Master Brain, which occasionally takes over his personality.

Ling could have made the villain of the piece a truly evil character - or gone down the rogue computer route. He manages to do both - and neither. The Master turns out to be one of the most interesting villains in the history of the series, as it's not his fault at all that he does cruel things. He's a victim - forced to do evil. He doesn't seek wealth or power from the Brain - just a good read. Other than the compulsions generated by the computer, he really only wants to retire.

How many other villains in the series have had a retirement plan as their principal motivation for conquering the Earth?

This week we move into more conventional science fiction territory, with the traditional literary figures bowing out for now after the defeat of the Gorgon.

Much of the action takes place either in the high-tech Apparatus Room or the computerised control centre. The one new fictional character we meet - the Karkus - is a futuristic superhero, armed with a ray gun, from the year 2000 (more of which shortly). He is not from a book, but from some sort of on-line newspaper.

His inclusion puts the Doctor on the back foot, as he has never heard of the character. As such, it is Zoe who gets to have an action scene, and this is very much her episode.

Jamie is side-lined, spending most of the episode in the Apparatus Room, having one-sided conversations with Gulliver.

We do see a slip in Zoe's mathematical prowess this week, however. She seems overly impressed that the Master has written over half a million words over his 25 year career. (The Master thinks this may be some sort of record). It's not really that impressive a tally at all. For instance, the Bible has around three quarters of a million words, depending on which version you use. The biographer of Charles Hamilton (see above) has worked out that he averaged some 1.2 million words per year. Zoe's sums are well out as well, as 5000 words per week over 25 years adds up to 6.5 million...

It may simply be that, by her time, people don't read and write very much at all (hence the telepress).

And when is her time?

Zoe: "We all follow his adventures in the strip sections of the hourly telepress"

The Doctor: "The strip...? Oh, a strip cartoon of the year two thousand?"

Zoe: "You've been in the year two thousand, haven't you?"

The Doctor: "Yes, but I hardly had time to follow the strip cartoons..."

And later, when impersonating the Karkus the Doctor gives his attribution as:

"... Year two thousand, comic strip creation, hourly telepress".

That's very specific. This on-screen evidence would seem to point to Zoe originating from 2000 AD, and therefore that must have been the setting for The Wheel in Space. If that was the case, why would Zoe ask the Doctor if he had ever visited that time - if that's when they first met?

However, there's nothing in her introductory story to suggest such an early date. The Moonbase is set firmly in 2070, and yet everything about the Wheel suggests more advanced technology. Looking at various sources - on-line and guide books - the date range for The Wheel in Space runs from 2030 to 2079.

All ignore what is stated, quite categorically, here.

There is one explanation, which hindsight allows us to use - and that's that this story never actually happens and is simply all a dream by the Doctor, so it's a slightly garbled version of reality.

We'll talk about this more when we get to the next episode...

Trivia:

• The ratings remain consistent with the previous week's episode, with the appreciation figure actually increasing.
• Christopher Robbie will be back to play the Cyber-Leader in Revenge of the Cybermen.
• In the novel, Ling has actual word bubbles appear when the Karkus speaks.
• The book in which Jamie and Zoe are trapped at the cliff-hanger has a chapter title visible - Un Renard Pris Au Piege (A Fox Caught in a Trap). This was the second story in an 1842 collection of fables, titled Scenes de la Vie Privee et Publique des Animaux (Scenes from the Private and Public Life of Animals). These stories were based on illustrations by French artist Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard - who also illustrated novels such as Gulliver's Travels...
• Captain Jack Harkaway - the name a probable inspiration for Torchwood's Captain Jack Harkness - is a genuine fictional adventure story hero, created by Bracebridge Hemyng in 1871. He started off as a schoolboy then went to Oxford University before becoming an adventurer and explorer as an adult. Launched in "Penny Dreadful's" he migrated to a series of books - 26 in all - which included the further adventures of his son and grandson.
• The Ensign publication is fictitious.
• Terrance Dicks was credited as Assistant Script Editor on some versions of the scripts for this episode. He was preparing to take over from Sherwin after the summer break, but claimed that he had little to do with The Mind Robber - describing it as "Sherwin's baby". He would later state that he didn't like the story very much, as he wasn't keen on fantasy.

Glasgow Commonwealth Games...

Nice little video featuring Sylvester McCoy introducing the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games yesterday. The hosts need to collect the King and Queen from Balmoral to get them to the opening ceremony, and come across the TARDIS. After they have dematerialised, the Seventh Doctor wanders along, confused as he was convinced he had parked there...

The TARDIS materialises at a few Scottish locations before finally arriving at the arena with the royals.

Sylvester is in the best place in the world if he wants to find old Police Public Call Boxes, though he's more likely to find an espresso machine than a time machine inside...

The Art of... The Mind Robber

Peter Ling novelised his own story for Target. It was published in hardback in November 1986, with the paperback following in April 1987. The cover art is by David McAllister.

A couple of years ago I ran two posts - my favourite Target artwork, and my least. This one featured on the latter list. My reasons were twofold: I wasn't too keen on the pink / yellow colour scheme (the spine was purple), and - more importantly - I didn't like the generic paintings of the characters. I always prefer to see representations which match the ones actually seen on screen wherever possible - even if these are stand-alone books which can be enjoyed in their own right. The characters chosen are also the least memorable / representative of the story, appearing only very briefly. As they don't really represent the story as a whole, I'd argue they could be said to be misleading for the casual buyer.

The Gorgon is the most striking image, but I prefer the blank-eyed statue version as seen on screen.

D'Artagnan, by the way, is actually his brother-in-arms Porthos, as played by Frank Finlay, from the 1974 movie The Four Musketeers. (Check out the StudioCanal Vintage Classics DVD cover).

The TARDIS is a generic 1980's image, also used on the novelisation of The Savages by the same artist.

The novel was re-released in August 1990, using the VHS artwork below.

That VHS release came in May 1990, with cover art by Alister Pearson. Against a pentagon design we have a central portrait of the Doctor, surrounded by some of the characters from the Land of Fiction - the unicorn, a Clockwork Soldier, Rapunzel, a White Robot and Medusa. Rather than leave it an entirely monochrome image, Pearson has elected to add some colouring to Rapunzel, who is positioned centre bottom. As the Gorgon, unicorn and White Robot are all colourless figures anyway, this makes artistic sense. Giving the soldier a bright red coat would have upset the balance.

The Australian version has a broad band along the bottom with the parental guidance details, cutting off the feet of the White Robot and Clockwork Soldier - and the red text regarding the star is over to the left, over the robot's legs.

The DVD was released in the UK in March 2005, with a photomontage by Clayton Hickman. This concentrates on the Clockwork Soldiers alone, though one would have expected the White Robots to be the more iconic figures (or another assembly of different characters). The Master and Doctor flank an image of the TARDIS breaking apart. Presumably the Soldiers determined the overall reddish colour scheme.

The mixed group is what the US Region 1 release went with. It uses the same pair of portraits of the Doctor and Master as the Region 2 cover, more prominent and this time flanking Jamie and Zoe, with some of the other miscellaneous characters taking up the top half.

This arrived on 6th September 2005, a period when the American discs often had different covers to the UK / Australian ones.

Finally, the novel was released as an audiobook in August 2009, using McAllister's artwork. The reader was Derek Jacobi - who, of course, had played an entirely different Master on screen in 2007.

The change of logo, and hence colour palette, does make the artwork just a little more bearable.

Inspirations: Oxygen

In 2005, former CEO of Nestlé Peter Brabeck-Letmathe tried to argue that water was not a human right. It was simply a commodity like anything you might buy in a shop, and had a market value.

By 2013 he had backtracked in his view, following the understandable outcry. 

It's this sort of commercialisation of what most would agree to be a basic human necessity which forms the backdrop to this episode.

We are in deep space, and the essential element here is oxygen. A mining rig on an otherwise lifeless asteroid is owned by a faceless corporation on Earth, and its crew have to pay for their air supply.

There's no safety net. If your stock runs out, you suffocate and die.

The story began life as a request from Steven Moffat to writer Jamie Mathieson for an adventure set in outer space. The showrunner wanted it to highlight just how hostile and deadly space could be. He had been inspired by the recent movie Gravity and the 1995 film Apollo 13.

Mathieson's original idea was of a spaceship graveyard. A group of survivors were being forced to jump from wreck to wreck in search of oxygen and other supplies, hunted all the time by savage crystalline monsters.

They were controlled by a queen who dwelt on a nearby asteroid. She mimicked distress signals to ensnare passing ships. An additional complication was that the survivor group consisted of people from opposing factions in a war. There was also an element of The Thing, in that the monsters could mentally manipulate people, so paranoia was rife amongst the survivors.

The story would have ended with an ethical debate about whether or not they should kill the queen.

It was then decided to ditch the monsters, other than the queen, and simply have space itself the threat, but with the additional danger of zombies - animated human cadavers. These would have some sort of intelligence, however. It was the queen which controlled them. 

The spaceship graveyard was still the setting, and the people encountered by the Doctor and Bill were now simply shipwrecked scavengers.

This time, the episode ended with the Doctor forming a psychic link with the queen to stop it from killing.

Two of the characters were named after family friends of the writer - Darren and his son Ivan, who was a fan of the show. The former became Dahh-Ren, who was originally going to have a multi-eyed spider-like face. Budget restraints reduced this to him simply having blue skin.

As much as Moffat liked the story, he asked Mathieson to pare it down to essentials. He proposed that the zombies be manipulated by their spacesuits. He was worried that they might resemble too closely the skeletons in spacesuits from his own Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead.

The more zombified look of the cadavers - exposed to the vacuum of space - was retained.

It was Moffat who then suggested that the crew of a mining vessel be forced to purchase their oxygen from the corporation which employed them. This could be withheld if the operation was unprofitable.

An added threat was that the smartsuits could electrocute their owner or anyone they touch.

The suits quite literally become the menace.

"Suits" is slang for business executives and bosses - i.e. the men in suits who run things.

Together Moffat and Mathieson decided on bringing back GUS from the writer's previous story Mummy on the Orient Express, whose origins had been left vague. This would stand for Ganymede Systems.

Mathieson then drew on his own experience of working long hours for bad wages for large corporations.

In the end, the references to GUS would be dropped.

The mining vessel was named Chasm Forge, after the Valley Forge from the 1972 ecological sci-fi movie Silent Running.

Mathieson proposed that the Doctor should be blinded for the second half of the story, after sacrificing his sight to save Bill. He later suggested that the Doctor remain blind at the end of the story - expecting this to be rejected. Moffat decided to incorporate this into the next two scripts.

Nardole's role in Series 10 had only developed late in the day, and he was originally going to be brought into the story after the Doctor and Bill set off without realising he was on the TARDIS.

He didn't feature in the earlier drafts.

At one point the Doctor lies to Nardole about one of the fluid links. He had first used these as an excuse to explore in The Daleks, and they were a feature of other stories such as The Wheel in Space and The Mind Robber.

The Doctor had previously been seen to do a space walk, in a helmet with oxygen but no face visor, in Four to Doomsday, where he claimed to be able to survive this environment for up to 6 minutes.

Next time: monk-y business in the Vatican...