Synopsis:
The Doctor discovers that this planet does not have as long to survive as they thought. It will be destroyed in only two dawns time...
He and Steven must get back to the Drahvin ship to warn them and retrieve Vicki - but the Chumbley robots approach once more. As they work around the base of the ship, the Doctor worries about what they are doing. At the last moment he realises that they are laying explosives. The blast knocks them to the floor, but they and the ship are otherwise unharmed.
In the spaceship, Vicki's distrust of Maaga strengthens as she confirms she is really being held hostage.
Steven and the Doctor arrive back. Before entering, they stop to consider the primitive nature of the vessel. They are sure that the Chumblies should be able to break in easily with their weaponry, and wonder why they have not attempted to do so. They recall the message sent by the Rills which Maaga refused to let them hear.
The Doctor tries to get Maaga to accept the help which the Rills are offering. His urgency raises her suspicions and she levels her gun at him. He is forced to reveal the findings of the Astral Map concerning the imminent destruction of this planet.
He then offers to go and meet the Rills to negotiate with them. Vicki will once again be held as hostage, but Steven agrees to take her place.
After the Doctor and Vicki leave, Steven attempts to turn the Drahvin soldiers against their leader. Maaga notices this, and orders him to use the TARDIS to take them to the Rill ship. He informs her that only the Doctor knows how to operate it.
The Doctor and Vicki encounter a patrol of Chumblies. The Doctor suggests that they study the robots to ascertain any weaknesses. They know they are blind, relying on sound or vibration. Vicki throws a rock behind one and it fails to react, so they know they can only detect what is immediately in front of them.
Maaga orders her troops to prepare for an attack on the Rill spaceship. They will seize it by force.
The Doctor is far more impressed by the huge Rill ship than he was of the Drahvin craft. It is surrounded by a compound, at the entrance of which is a pyramidal drilling rig. He decides to investigate this further. They note a distinctive smell, which they identify as ammonia.
Wandering deeper into the compound, Vicki is examining a small inert Chumbley when she notices movement at a glass portal.
She screams as she sees a huge reptilian creature staring out at her...
Next episode: Airlock
Written by: William Emms
Recorded: Friday 16th July, 1965 - Television Centre Studio TC4
First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 18th September, 1965
Ratings: 9.5 million / AI 55
Designer: Richard Hunt
Director: Derek Martinus
Critique:
Not a great deal to say about this instalment as it's a rather mundane episode, short on incident.
The changes to the script necessitated by the departure of William Russell and Jacqueline Hill become more noticeable this week as Steven elects to remain behind in the Drahvin ship as their hostage. This was Vicki's role last week, but the astronaut will spend two full episodes in a fairly passive role, incapable of besting three drone-like Drahvins.
Seeing Barbara in this predicament would have been interesting, but we are left with the young action hero a seemingly impotent captive. He does try to use his wits rather than his fists to manipulate the Drahvin soldiers, turning them against their more privileged leader. (Maaga gets a better gun and real food to eat, as opposed to "twigs").
He does physically attack the leader at one point, but she seems to overpower him - and the Doctor and Vicki just stand there, allowing the soldiers to arrive and stop Steven.
Whilst we can understand Barbara being the one to act as hostage (or Vicki as last week), it seems wrong that Steven should be the one to remain behind whilst the Doctor and Vicki go off on their own to confront apparently monstrous killer aliens, who arm themselves with flame-throwing robots. Common sense should have seen Vicki stay with the Drahvins again - even if untrustworthy they are a known quantity - whilst Steven acted as escort for the Doctor on this potentially dangerous mission.
The fact that the TARDIS crew are twice allowed to embark on expeditions on their own is odd. Why has Maaga not sent one of her soldiers to accompany the Doctor on any of these missions?
She doesn't trust the new arrivals, and makes no secret of this, and her distrust of the Rills is such that she is putting the lives of herself and her soldiers at risk because of it.
Who knows what the Doctor could get up to away from her ship. He could very well join forces with the Rills against her - which is indeed exactly what happens.
Considering the heavy rewriting this particular episode underwent, you would have thought that some of these lapses in logic might have been picked up on.
Rewrites caused a few continuity errors as reference was made to scenes that had been cut - such as Steven knowing that Maaga had been knocked out in the crash.
Once again much of the Chumbley material had been pre-filmed at Ealing. This included the lone Chumbley laying the explosives, shown on the TARDIS scanner, and scenes of the Doctor and Vicki encountering a trio of the robots on their way to the Rill spaceship. Footage of this scene was filmed from different angles to make the scene more visually interesting.
William Hartnell ad-libbed the comment about Guy Fawkes having been resurrected when the Chumbley's bomb goes off.
Vicki gets a great line when talking to the Doctor after discovering the limitations of the Chumbley sensors:
"There was no risk. I noted, observed, collated, concluded, and then I threw the rock". The Second Doctor will say something similar in The Abominable Snowmen.
The Rills make their first, brief, appearance at the cliff-hanger to the episode. The closing credits ran over a close-up of the creature's eyes.
For many years it was believed that no photographs of these creatures existed - despite one of them featuring in a Daily Mail Boys and Girls Exhibition. We'll look at them in more detail next week when they make a more significant appearance.
After the reuse of the Dalek door sound effect for the Drahvin airlock, the Dalek control room sound is used here for the Rill centre.
Whilst no model was needed of the Drahvin spaceship - due to it only being seen as a studio set - Richard Hunt did produce a model of the Rill craft and its surrounding compound. The craft appeared as a huge black sphere, with the compound beneath it. It had been filmed at Ealing on Friday 25th June and unfortunately it would only feature in two of the story's missing instalments.
Trivia:
- The ratings rise by half a million with the appreciation figure remaining in the mid 50's.
- This episode was broadcast 10 minutes later than usual. Variations were generally due to the afternoon's live sports coverage, though moves were afoot to push the programme back slightly in the schedules.
- Surprisingly, younger viewers were not impressed by the first two episodes of this story (according to Junior Points of View), despite the impressive audience figures. One particular young critic bemoaned the fact that the series had chosen to name the robots "Chumblies" as he would be teased at school. His name - Paul Chumley.
- A few days after Trap of Steel was broadcast, ABC (part of the ITV network) announced that they would be showing their latest acquisition from the States - Irwin Allen's glossy Sci-fi series Lost in Space. It would be the first serious effort by the opposition to challenge Doctor Who in the ratings. This would not begin broadcasting until October.
No comments:
Post a Comment