Synopsis:
Having just left ancient Rome, Ian notices that the Doctor is concerned about the TARDIS. He tells the teacher that it has been seized by some powerful force and is being dragged down to some unknown location...
The ship materialises in the middle of a bleak moon-like landscape, surrounded by craters and crags.
It appears to be devoid of life, though Vicki is overpowered by an ultra-high pitch sound which only she can hear.
Efforts by the Doctor to take off again fail, as the ship's power seems to be drained away. He decides that he must look outside for the source of this problem in order to neutralise it, inviting Ian to accompany him.
Having been badly affected by the strange sound, Vicki has taken to her room. Barbara is looking after her, and at last reveals that she and Ian had also visited Rome when Vicki notices a gold bracelet - gift from Nero - on the teacher's arm. Barbara is alarmed to find this arm moving involuntarily, even when she notices and tries to stop it. It is as if some magnetic force had control over it. She and Vicki are alarmed to hear that the Doctor and Ian are going outside.
They don special overcoats with breathing apparatus attached, as the Doctor suspects a thin atmosphere outside. He calls these his "ADJs" - Atmospheric Density Jackets. Ian points out that, despite life support and lighting still working, there is no power in the controls. The doors will not open.
The Doctor reveals that his blue crystal ring has special powers and uses it to operate a device that opens the main doors.
As they explore, they both hear the high pitch noise which Vicki had earlier experienced, but cannot locate the source as it seems to echo all around them. The Doctor thinks the echoes significant. He also notes a large number of moons orbiting this world. Ian notices a pool of water but is stopped from drinking from it by the Doctor. Borrowing Ian's tie (which he uses as a belt) he demonstrates how the pool is actually one of formic acid. Everything seems to point to this being the planet Vortis, in the Isop Galaxy, but that world should not have any satellites.
In the TARDIS, Barbara comes under the magnetic force once again, and this time becomes fully hypnotised. In a trance, she wanders out of the ship. Vicki hears the strange noise surrounding her, and the TARDIS then begins to move. Something is dragging it from its landing place.
The same magnetic force affecting Barbara causes Ian's gold pen to fly out of his hand. He and the Doctor come across a tall column, crowned by a winged figure. From the weathering, this appears to be an ancient monument.
Passing between two large rocks a sticky web-like mass springs up and ensnares Ian, stinging his hands and face. The Doctor cannot break it, and so decides to return to the TARDIS for help.
Nearby, still in a trance, Barbara is walking straight for one of the acid pools.
When the Doctor reaches the spot where the TARDIS had landed, he is shocked to find that his ship has disappeared...
Next episode: The Zarbi
Written by: Bill Strutton
Recorded: Friday 22nd January 1965 - Riverside Studio 1
First broadcast: 5:40pm, Saturday 13th February 1965
Ratings: 13.5 million / AI 56
Designer: John Wood
Director: Richard Martin
Additional cast: Robert Jewell, Gerald Taylor (Zarbi), Jack Pitt (Larvae Gun)
In interviews, William Harold Strutton gave a couple of personal recollections as inspirations for his story.
One came from his own childhood, back in Australia, when he had spotted two large bull ants fighting each other in an old kerosene can. When he tried to separate them, he was bitten very painfully.
Later, he observed the way that his young sons used to fight each other, and they reminded him of the incident with the ants.
Meeting with Verity Lambert the writer - another member of Associated London Scripts - found that she welcomed the scope of the story. In its second season, she was keen to experiment and test the boundaries of what a Doctor Who could be. Strutton's idea was set on a moon-like planet, with only various forms of alien life present - all based on Earth insects. There would be no recognisably humanoid characters for the TARDIS crew to interact with - or for the audience to identify with.
Story Editor Dennis Spooner saw the story as having political subtexts, with the Zarbi representing communism, and the Menoptra free enterprise. This was later denied by Strutton, who claimed to be simply telling a good adventure yarn.
Having seen the financial rewards coming to fellow ALS writer Terry Nation from his Daleks, Strutton was very hopeful that his insect creations would generate lucrative merchandising.
This would be the last non-Dalek six-parter for a time - the production team having now decided that all stories would be a standard four episodes in length, other than Dalek stories which would be granted six episodes.
Richard Martin had proven himself capable of handling big complex stories following The Dalek Invasion of Earth. He had originally been pencilled in for The Rescue / The Romans, but was moved onto this project.
He and Lambert enjoyed a fiery, but creative, working relationship.
Like The Daleks, this opening instalment features only the regular cast exploring a strange new world. There are no other speaking characters, though we do have some brief shots of Zarbi and a Larvae Gun.
The set comprised a cyclorama depicting a night sky, full of moons, above a range of distant mountains. On 405-line television this would have looked more impressive, but today we can see characters casting shadows on these distant crags. The studio floor was covered in sawdust and sand, with lots of raised areas and free-standing columns of rock to add interest.
The close-up of Ian's dissolving Coal Hill School tie was edited in - footage from the Ealing filming.
To indicate the thinner atmosphere, Martin elected to smear two camera lens fittings with Vaseline. A special filter which would have done the job proved too expensive. The Vaseline effect varied from camera to camera and sometimes obscured the action, and it would be eliminated in later episodes.
A model was created of the planet's surface, for a sequence in which the TARDIS is seen being dragged away. This was the one third scale TARDIS model built for The Romans.
Unusually, the TARDIS doors are positioned to the right of the screen - meaning we are seeing a wall of the console room which we have never seen before. This contains an alcove in which the Doctor has a small laboratory set-up, with first aid box and the Astral Map unit. We also see an ornate light device which the Doctor uses to open the doors, after passing his ring across it.
We also get to see the TARDIS console rotate on its castors, used by stagehands to easily move it in and out of the studio.
The Larvae Guns did not feature in Strutton's original scripts. He had the Zarbi themselves spitting fire. It was Spooner who added them as a separate species (presumably an earlier developmental form of the Zarbi). This may be why Strutton elects to rename the creatures as "Venom Grubs" in his novelisation of the story - he didn't invent them. They have also been named variously as "Sting Grubs" or "Sting Guns".
The Doctor dons a white version of his Astrakhan hat, and the ADJs are light coloured, for a very good reason. The particular special effect of characters being shown in front of photographic images, as previously seen in Planet of Giants, was achieved by the actors standing in front of black drapes, with the image reflected off a mirror and superimposed over the photograph. Had the actors been dressed in dark costumes, the dark areas would have vanished against the black drapes and become invisible. Had Hartnell not been wearing the white version of the hat, the top of his head might have disappeared.
Even with this precaution, the effect makes figures ghost-like and transparent.
The episode had been given a special trailer, which Martin was extremely unhappy with. He felt it gave away some of the plot, featuring as it did material from later episodes, but his biggest gripe was a humorous sequence where a Zarbi arrives for work at Ealing Studios. The newspapers were also given shots of a Zarbi standing at a bus stop. Martin felt that this undermined the menace of the monsters, which he was doing his best to create on screen. Lambert's response was that the Zarbi were perhaps too scary, and this had to be countered for the benefit of small children who would watch.
It would have been better had the first full sight of the Zarbi been held back until the next episode, when they reveal themselves to the Doctor, but having teased Zarbi, Martin and Spooner felt compelled to include them.
- The trailer broadcast at the end of Inferno and other publicity clearly seized the audience's attention as we have a massive rise in viewing figures. 13.5 million would be a record which would remain unbroken until the advent of Tom Baker's Doctor.
- The appreciation index also rises - so those watching liked what they saw.
- Filming at Ealing took place over six days, from Monday 4th January to Monday 11th January 1965 incl.
- Below, an example of the publicity which annoyed Richard Martin so much. NB: this Zarbi operator is not wearing the costume's leg pieces.
- The original drafts were titled Doctor Who and the Webbed Planet.
- William Hartnell usually stayed in digs when in London for the week, but also sometimes stayed with Jack Pitt, who operates the Larvae Gun in this episode.
- The incidental music is courtesy of Les Structures Sonores - the French musique concrete performers whom Lambert had initially approached to compose the series' main theme. To reduce costs, the pieces used were from stock.
- Strutton's wife Marguerite came up with the name "Zarbi".
- In a House of Lords debate a few days after broadcast, the Earl of Bessborough referred to "Zarbies" as an alternative name for ants, when comparing worker productivity between the UK and USA.
- As part of the big publicity push Radio Times afforded this serial Doctor Who's third cover:
- Within was the usual feature / photograph which always marked the start of a new story:
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