Episode 209: The Wheel in Space (6)

Synopsis:

Jamie and Zoe are making a hazardous spacewalk between the Wheel and the Silver Carrier rocket. The space station's crew have begun destroying the approaching meteorites and they are in danger of being caught in the explosions...

In the communications centre, Leo Ryan is angry and accuses the Doctor of sending the youngsters to their deaths. He insists that this was a risk which had to be taken as there is something on the rocket which he needs, then sadly informs him of Gemma's death which he has just witnessed on the visiphone.

Jarvis Bennett has been sitting quietly in his chair for some time in a near catatonic state, seemingly oblivious to all that is going on around him - but he suddenly snaps out of this on hearing of his friend's death. With everyone preoccupied, he gets up and quietly slips from the room after switching off its protective forcefield.

The Doctor tells Leo of Gemma's final warning - to switch to the sectional air supply. She gave her life to give this information as the Cybermen are about to poison them all.

Leo complies, and then Bennett appears on the visiphone advising that they should reactivate the forcefield. He is in a corridor nearby, determined to get revenge for Gemma's death.

A Cyberman appears and Bennett launches himself at it. It proves a futile gesture as, after a brief struggle, it throws him across the corridor then blasts him with its chest unit. His death is witnessed by the others on the monitor.

Vallance has been instructed to inject ozone into the air supply, but the procedure fails. The Cyberman he is assisting contacts its Planner, which deduces that someone on board the station knows their ways. Vallance is ordered to look into the Cyberman's communications device and picture in his mind everyone on the Wheel, so that this person might be identified.

Jamie and Zoe, meanwhile, have safely made it to the rocket. He tells her about the object they have come to find - the Time Vector Generator - and they quickly locate it and prepare to make the return journey. Zoe uses the rocket's communications equipment to try to contact the Wheel to provide them with an update - but accidentally breaks into the Cybermen's frequency. 

They see the mental images produced by Vallance. When it comes to the Doctor, he tells them that he doesn't know this recent arrival - but the Planner recognises him as a known enemy. He must be lured out of the communications centre and destroyed.

In the centre, something large is spotted on the radar. It is seen to change course and move towards the station, and the Doctor deduces that this is the Cybership. Leo asks Casali if he is able yet to contact Earth for assistance, but the technician responds that he needs spare transistors to finish repairs - and these will have to be fetched from the Power House. 

Someone will have to go and get them.

Jamie and Zoe depart from the rocket, in order to warn the Doctor of the planned trap for him.

Leo and Tanya study blueprints of the Wheel's layout and realise that the only way to get to the Power House without going through the corridors is through an emergency air shaft.

Flannigan then appears on the visiphone to tell them that he has locked the Cybermen in one of the workshops, but doesn't know how long he can keep them there.

The Doctor then insists that he will go to fetch the spares. Flannigan will meet him in one of the corridors.

As the Doctor is about to leave, he warns Leo and the others to seize Flannigan as soon as he comes into the centre through the forcefield. He advises they check the back of his neck for a metal plate.

A Cyberman orders Flannigan to go to the communications centre and destroy the forcefield as soon as he is admitted.

The Doctor arrives in the Power House through the air shaft, and immediately spots a bottle of mercury which he pockets. He then starts looking through the electronic equipment, a plan forming in his mind...

Jamie and Zoe arrive back on board - to be greeted by the sight of Gemma's body.

As they leave the Oxygen Store they meet Flannigan, who agrees to escort them to the communications centre.

Vallance is accompanying the other Cyberman, and they realise that the Doctor has not come by the expected route. Vallance then recalls the emergency air shaft.

As soon as Flannigan enters the centre with Jamie and Zoe, the crew overpower him and a metal plate with transistor is applied to the back of his neck, breaking the Cyberman hypnotic influence. He quickly recovers, vowing to get even with the monsters.

The Doctor appears on the monitor to report that he has found the spares they need, and Jamie informs him of the plan to trap him. He asks Jamie to use the air shaft to bring the Time Vector Generator to him - then has to break transmission as he reports that company has arrived...

The two Cybermen have entered the Power House.

The Doctor is able to get them to confirm some aspects of their invasion plan before one of the creatures steps forward to kill him. However, he has rigged up a powerful electric field just inside the door, and this destroys the Cyberman. The other attempts to shoot him, but the field blocks its weaponry.

It is forced to withdraw.

Jamie then emerges from the air shaft with Flannigan, who arms himself with a bottle of quick-setting plastic. The Doctor gives them a metal plate to use on Vallance when they find him, then sets about making adjustments to the X-ray laser. As Flannigan and Jamie leave, they ask him to contact Leo.

The Doctor calls him and tells him that he is going to boost the power of the laser, and is told that the Cybership is fast approaching.

Donning spacesuits, Jamie and Flannigan go to the loading bay where the last Cyberman is to be found with Vallance, also in a spacesuit. Flannigan pretends to still be under hypnotic control, claiming to have captured Jamie.

A group of Cybermen have begun to spacewalk from their ship towards the open outer airlock doors. Jamie quickly overpowers Vallance and fits the plate to his neck, whilst Flannigan destroys the Cyberman by spraying the plastic into its chest unit.

The Cybermen reach the airlock door and begin to push their way in as Flannigan tries to close it. 

The Doctor fits the Time Vector Generator into the laser's capacitor bank and notifies Leo that it is ready. He opens fire, and the Cybership is destroyed.

Flannigan then activates the neutron forcefield - and the Cybermen are sent hurtling off into space.

A short time later, Leo is contacting Earth to inform them of what has happened, having assumed temporary command of the Wheel. Zoe has gone to escort the Doctor and Jamie to the Silver Carrier to retrieve the TARDIS. Left alone with Jamie, she is curious as to why they won't explain anything about their craft. He bids her goodbye.

The Doctor is refilling the fluid links with mercury when Jamie enters the TARDIS. They are about to depart when the Doctor spots the lid of a large chest gently closing. Inside they find Zoe, who asks to go with them. She wishes to experience life after years of simply studying it, and recent events have opened her eyes to how cloistered her own life has been. Jamie is quick to dismiss her request but the Doctor is willing to accept her - so long as she knows what she is letting herself in for. He removes a headset from a wall panel and puts it on, telling them that he is going to present mental images on the scanner. He will weave these into a complete narrative, and asks Zoe if she has ever heard of the Daleks. He begins to relate to her their last encounter with them...

Next time: The Dominators...

Data:

Written by David Whitaker (from a story by Kit Pedler)

Recorded: Friday 10th May 1968 - Riverside Studio 1

First broadcast: 6.05pm, Saturday 1st June 1968

Ratings: 6.5 million / AI 62

VFX: Bill King & Trading Post

Designer: Derek Dodd

Director: Tristan De Vere Cole

Critique:

This was the last time Doctor Who used the credit 'Story Editor'. From Season 6 the title would become 'Script Editor'.

Dialogue about how the Doctor would get to the Power House without going through the corridors was added in amendments made in early March.

Whitaker advised that a woman's legs, wearing Gemma's distinctive uniform, could be shown, without revealing the face (which would be seen using the photographs taken during the recording of the previous episode).

The final scene in the communications centre, with Casali establishing radio contact with Earth, was only added during rehearsals for this episode.

Zoe did not hide in the wooden chest originally. The Doctor was to have spotted her crawling into the TARDIS on her hands and knees before hiding behind a chair.

This episode affords us our only glimpse of the Cybermen as they were originally designed for this story.

The main difference between filming and studio recordings was the suit. This was designed by Martin Baugh to be a lightweight vinyl material, light grey in colour, attached to which were small rectangular junction boxes, two of which were mounted on the shoulders. Thin rods were connected to these along the arms and legs.

During the filming at Ealing on Friday 22nd March of the spacewalk in this episode, it was found that the rods kept coming loose, and the thin vinyl wrinkled easily and was in danger of tearing. Unhappy with the costumes, De Vere Cole requested that they be redesigned before the story went into studio.

Some elements constructed by Jack and John Lovell such as the helmets and gloves were retained but the main suit was replaced entirely by two-piece diving suits sprayed silver. The shoulder-mounted junction boxes were moved to the upper arms.

The material already filmed of the Cybermen spacewalking and trying to force their way through the airlock doors was retained for broadcast - so this is the original design's only appearance in the programme, as you can see below. The Cyberman ranks were swollen by having a third costume, worn by Tony Harwood, at the rear. This was one of the old Mark II versions, unmodified. The footage was also mirrored to double their numbers.

It should be noted that the Cybermen on film wore their chest units - actually Mark II versions - mounted the correct way up with the circular weapon at the bottom, which was how the Lovells intended them to be worn.

Apart from model shots of the Wheel, rocket and Cybership, filmed at the Puppet Theatre for use throughout the serial, the shots of the Cybermen being flung off into space were also filmed on Thursday 21st March. These were simply photographs of the creatures, cut out and mounted on cardboard.

Studio recording returned to Riverside and like the previous episode it was decided to use 35mm film rather than 625-line videotape. This was due to the fact that the episode was to be recorded out of order, thanks to some of the cast having to change in and out of spacesuits for parts of the action. For instance, Jamie is seen to be wearing his at the beginning of the episode, and again later in the loading bay, but with his normal gear in between and then again at the very end - necessitating three costume changes over the course of the evening if the episode was made in story order. All the scenes of people wearing the suits could be recorded together.

Hines recorded both of his spacesuit sequences first, ending with the struggle in the loading bay. A break then allowed him to go off and change into his usual costume for his mid-episode scenes and the final TARDIS sequence.

Other recording breaks included one to replace the radar scanner in the communications centre, and another to fix kirby wires to Michael Turner for the sequence where he is picked up and thrown by a Cyberman. Perhaps recalling how bad this physical effect had looked in The Tomb of the Cybermen, this was only to have been seen on the visiphone screen. During the struggle, we can also see a piece of the Cyberman's piping coming loose.

As in previous episodes, a halo of light was superimposed over the Cyberman's chest unit and the screen alternated between positive and negative. This same over-exposure effect was used for when the Cybermen are blasted off into space by the forcefield. The oscilloscope wave was used as Vallance was hypnotically given fresh orders, and superimposed over still images of the cast which represented Vallance's mental images of the crew.

A spark was superimposed over the shot of the Cyberman killed by the Doctor's trap.

The final recording break was to set up the TARDIS scene, which used only a minimal set of console, wooden chest and two walls, one of which was a photographic blow-up in a poor state of repair.

The end credits rolled over a close-up of Zoe's face as she concentrated on the Doctor's mental projections.

The closing sequence was designed to lead into a repeat broadcast of The Evil of the Daleks which began the following week - which we'll look at separately in the next post. The clip chosen came from the cliffhanger to the first episode, rather than starting from the very beginning with the theft of the TARDIS from Gatwick Airport - chosen as it is the first time a Dalek appears in the story.

It is usually referred to as a fluff from Troughton, but knowing his mischievous nature one suspects that his reference to the "sexual" air supply instead of "sectional" - that's what it sound like - was probably deliberate.

Unwinding in Studio 3 - the pub across the road from Riverside - after recording, Troughton expressed his dissatisfaction with the recent stories to Peter Bryant. He felt the scripts to be repetitive and lacking in depth, and he wanted to see new monsters introduced - though he did like the Cybermen, which he was pleased to hear would be back next season. He was told about the plans Bryant and Derrick Sherwin had about reformatting the series, basing it in the England of the near future. It would be more action-orientated, with the Doctor working alongside Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart and Professor Travers in their fight against the Cybermen.

It's a disappointing ending to the story, with the threat of the Cybermen and their invasion fleet dealt with far too abruptly. The VFX leave a lot to be desired as well, what with flimsy cardboard cut-out Cybermen and the comic book style explosion of the Cybership. Things aren't helped by the frantic cutting of these sequences.

It's certainly not one of Whitaker's better scripts, and is generally regarded as the weakest of the 1960's Cyberman stories. The writer did once state in an interview that he didn't think there was enough material to fill six episodes, and the opening instalment is almost a self-contained one wherein the Doctor and Jamie have an adventure with a Servo Robot on a derelict spaceship. It was this concern about the lack of material which caused Whitaker to make the story more of a character piece in its first half, with the Cybermen only getting onto the Wheel at the midpoint of the story.

Character pieces only work, however, if those characters are people we can invest in, in one way or another. Leo and Tanya are very thinly sketched, whilst Bennett - who should be the most interesting character - descends into a form of manic-depression seemingly out of the blue. He goes from being annoyed about other people's theories to acting as if everything is going well, to catatonia in the space of an episode. Even Gemma, an ally of the Doctor in particular and whose death comes as a complete shock, can be a bit of a cold fish - advising Zoe but incapable of empathising with her when she starts questioning her conditioning and how she actually fits into this society.

The only really true human beings on the Wheel are Duggan and Flannigan, the former of whom is killed off relatively quickly and the latter of whom spends some time under hypnotic control. They are the only 'real' characters we see.

We've already mentioned the problematic dating for this story - complicated by Zoe's later talk about the Hourly Telepress of the year 2000 in The Mind Robber. The Cybermen recognise the Doctor in this episode purely from his appearance, but The Moonbase is specifically dated to the year 2070, and events on Telos were said to occur after the Cybermen had not been active in the galaxy for five centuries. The Telepress business definitely suggests an early 21st Century dating for Zoe's time, so before the attack on the Graviton base. When we take into account the Doctor's additional knowledge about the use of neuristors as defence against Cyber-hypnotism, it becomes increasingly more likely that there has been some unscreened Cyberman adventure during the Second Doctor's lifetime - which might go to explain the reference to 'Planet 14' in their next encounter...

This episode survived because it was retained by the BBC as an example of Doctor Who's fifth season, along with the third instalment of The Enemy of the World.

It brings the fifth season to a close - a run which has since become known as the "Monster Season". It began with the Cybermen and ended with them as well, and in between we had Yeti - twice - Ice Warriors and Seaweed Creatures. We even segue into a repeat run for the Daleks.

Only The Enemy of the World stood out from the rest with its James Bond trappings and purely human antagonists, but it at least had the novelty value of the chief villain being a doppelganger of the Doctor to help it stand out.

It had been another year of relative stability, both on-screen and off. Innes Lloyd had passed on the Producer baton to Peter Bryant in a smooth, planned fashion, having groomed him for the role for some time before stepping down. After the slight hiccup of Victor Pemberton as Story Editor, this role had been quickly filled by Derrick Sherwin, who had brought his own assistant - and intended replacement - onboard in the shape of Terrance Dicks, whose association with the television series will continue on and off for the next 15 years.

As for the TARDIS crew, Debbie Watling had appeared as Victoria in every story, thanks to her brief glimpse on the scanner and a credit in the first episode of the final story. This introduced new girl Zoe, but she is technically just a guest character up until the closing moments when she elects to stowaway on board the ship. Watling had also given plenty of notice regarding her departure, only ever intending to stay for a year. Though increasingly unhappy in his role as the Doctor, Patrick Troughton had agreed to stay on for one more season, by which time he would be financially comfortable, and Frazer Hines was happy to carry on a little longer as Jamie, despite pressures from his agent to get into films.

These weren't the only clouds on the horizon of Season 6. The ratings were falling overall, and the audience appreciation figures were only matching the peaks of Season 2 right at the very end.

William Hartnell had always insisted that Doctor Who would last 5 years. It would, though sadly without his presence. His departure at the end of The Tenth Planet had been the biggest upheaval to date for the series, but even bigger changes would lie ahead before the decade was out...

Trivia:

• This story ends on a high appreciation index figure of 62, beating Episode 2's score - but we also see the lowest viewing figure for this story, more than 2 million down on its peak for the fourth instalment.
• This episode was scheduled for the later time of 6pm due to an England-Germany international football match on Grandstand, but went out five minutes later than planned.
• The BBC commissioned an Audience Research Report for this episode, which highlighted the performances by Troughton and Hines as well as the spacewalk scenes. However, there were a number of negative comments about the lack of variety in the monsters and the use of complicated technical jargon. It was felt that the series was becoming repetitive.
• Junior Points of View on Friday 7th June echoed the complaints about the overuse of Daleks, Cybermen and Yeti in the series - though one youngster suggested the Doctor for Prime Minister.
• Tristan De Vere Cole was never invited back to direct Doctor Who. Peter Bryant was unhappy with him discussing the scripts with Whitaker, Pedler and Sherwin during the planning stages - arguing that such discussions should go through him as producer. He complained about this in his Director's Report, which was a document completed after every production and sent to his boss Shaun Sutton. As well as his complaint about his direct dealings with the writing team, he also claimed that De Vere Cole had gone over budget. This latter issue automatically led to a director being barred from returning to a series. In actual fact, the story did not go over budget.
• This would prove to be Peter Hawkins' final work on Doctor Who - though he would be heard again by viewers when The Evil of the Daleks was repeated over the summer. He had first joined the series in December 1963 for The Survivors - the second instalment of The Daleks - working alongside fellow voice actor David Graham and Brian Hodgson of the Radiophonic Workshop to develop and perfect the Dalek vocals - with input from directors Christopher Barry and Richard Martin. What they came up with helped popularise the monsters - and thus the series - as they could be easily impersonated by children. A variation of what they helped create continues to this day, Hawkins being the stated inspiration for Nicholas Briggs' performance. As well as his Doctor Who work, the actor is fondly remembered for classic children's series such as Captain Pugwash and Bill and Ben. Hawkins was forced to retire in 1992 due to ill health and died, aged 82, in 2006.

• Wendy Padbury and Eric Flynn would be reunited on screen in 1971 when they both joined the cast of children's adventure series Freewheelers. She was a regular across several seasons, skipping the seventh to have a child, whilst he only featured in a handful of episodes.
• We will meet Tanya Lernov again, and revisit the Wheel, for Zoe's departure scene in the final episode of The War Games.
• A clip of the confrontation between the Doctor and the Cybermen in the Power House was used for the flashback sequence in Earthshock (2), though the Cyber-Leader's dialogue describes the events of The Tomb of the Cybermen - that story still being missing in 1982.
• One of the photographic portraits taken of Patrick Troughton, as used by the Cyberman Planner to identify their enemy, was employed by the BBC for publicity purposes - made into cards which could be sent out to fans requesting autographs.

• It is, of course, a coincidence too far that the rocket's communications system could just happen to intercept an alien transmission, sent by alien technology - and not an ordinary message at that, but a mental projection...
• The Mark III Cybermen never reappeared in the series, but they do have a sort of afterlife - or at least the helmet does. This has turned up in a number of exhibitions, invariably attached to the wrong body, such as at Blackpool in the 1970's when it was paired with a Mark II suit and later with a Revenge version (images below from the Blackpool Remembered 7485 e-book - highly recommended):

• Helmets on their own could be seen at the MOMI exhibition on London's South Bank in the early nineties, as well as at the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff and in the current Worlds of Wonder touring exhibition:

• And a mixed costume Cyberman was photographed for the Radio Times in 1969, with a Mark III helmet on a Mark II body (and with a Mark IV chest unit). This even made it onto the Troughton variant cover for the magazine's coverage of the 50th Anniversary:

What's Wrong With... The Curse of Fenric

How do you like your temporal paradoxes? I like mine both rare and well done. 

Don't do them too often, and if you must have one then make sure you do something very clever, or at least witty, with it.

Personally, I could do without them. Like parallel universes, I think they are a bit of a cheat.

Here, we have the issue that the resolution to the entire story revolves around the actions of a creature which, because of those very actions, will never come into being.

How could the Doctor have experienced the Ancient One's world, if it never existed?

Nothing new in this, of course. Back in the Pertwee era Letts and Dicks came up with the handy Blinovitch Limitation Theory, whilst in Pyramids of Mars the glimpse of an Earth made lifeless by Sutekh is simply never explained. Still, we have to mention this here because it is such a major plot point.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Way back in the ancient past, the Doctor encountered Fenric and defeated him, apparently over a chess game. This caused Fenric to be imprisoned in a flask.

A couple of things to unpack here. First, how exactly can the "Evil from the Dawn of Time" be defeated so easily over a game of chess? Hardly omnipotence. (Could have been worse - could be a god-like being who gets beat because he can't catch a ball).

Second, the Doctor knows that Fenric is simply locked away in the flask - something which someone could easily find and open at some point. Why did the Doctor not take better (or any) care to ensure that he stayed lock away forever? Say, keep the flask stored in the TARDIS, or abandoned on some lifeless moon. Why only imprison Fenric, if he's the "Evil from the Dawn of Time". Why not destroy him by chucking the flask into a supernova like he did with the Fendahl skull?

It can't be the issue of the Doctor being unable to take a life, as the Seventh Doctor is a mass murderer in comparison to his predecessors.

He may not wield a gun, but he's happy to talk sentient beings into committing suicide (as happens in this story, or with the Dalek Supreme). He's also happy to goad Davros into blowing up Skaro, or tricking the Cyber-Leader into using Nemesis to blow up his entire fleet. He may say they did it to themselves, but if he knew mass death and destruction was going to ensue and went about deliberately triggering it anyway, then he has blood on his hands.

Nearly all the main characters, including Ace, are said to be the "Wolves of Fenric" - descendants of the Viking settlers who brought the flask from the Middle East to the north eastern coast of England. But, according to the runes in the church crypt, the Vikings were all killed by some black fog whilst still at sea ("the fingers of death reached out from the waters to reclaim the treasure we stole"). 

How then could they have started families?

The flask has obviously been in the sea for some time, as it is encrusted with coral. How then did it get to the bricked up tunnel where the soldiers find it. Who found and buried it? It can't have been all that long ago, as it's behind some fairly modern brickwork.

Unless adopted, most people have knowledge of their family history at least as far back as their grandparents as they are often still alive at the same time you are growing up. Even if not old enough to remember them personally, if they died relatively young, you'd see photographs and be told about them by your parents, aunts and uncles. 

Yet Ace fails to latch on to the fact that she's sending a baby with the same name as her mother to her grandmother's home address. The script isn't clear on whether or not Kathleen Dudman then becomes her grandmother, or if she simply lodges with her biological grandmother and then either dies or abandons Audrey. If the latter, Ace ought to have been told the story of how her mother was brought into the family by a woman who turned up during the war and lodged in the house for a time, or, far worse, Kathleen is her biological grandmother and she hasn't spotted that they both had the same first name, had the maiden name Dudman, and was married to a sailor who died during the war (and once had a nasty encounter with vampires whilst stationed in Northumbria...).

Also, Ace has already met a couple of young evacuees from London, so sending a woman with a baby into the city probably isn't the smartest of moves.

Especially to Streatham. Had the writer done his homework and looked at bomb damage maps of South London he would have seen that there was a concentration of bombing right along the main road down towards the south coast - which runs through Brixton and Streatham. German bombers didn't just use the Thames to guide them, they also used main roads and railway lines. Even with the blackout, these could be seen on cloudless nights, especially under a "bomber's moon". Whilst not their specific targets, no bomber wanted to run the risk of flying home with bombs still onboard - the weight slowing the plane down and making it far, far more dangerous if shot at by enemy fighters or anti-aircraft guns - so they got rid of them along their route home.

Some quick ones now. How exactly are the Russians going to get the Ultima Machine home? Even if there's the submarine waiting just off the coast, it wouldn't exactly fit in their little rubber dinghy.

And wouldn't they have noticed the booby trap when setting the thing up? It probably wouldn't have been installed in the Kremlin anyway - the Enigma machine wasn't installed in 10 Downing Street after all. It would probably only have killed a few scientists and soldiers in some remote facility if the Russians had been stupid enough not to examine it properly.

And talking of the coast earlier, that was one place where road signs were definitely removed so as not to aid any invading German troops or enemy agents. That direction post pointing to Maidens Point should not be there, especially with a top secret military base on the doorstep. (This was noted at the time of broadcast).

Why do the Russians insist on speaking in English once they land (apart from sparing the viewers from having to read subtitles for the next three and a bit episodes). They aren't planning on infiltrating the base secretly, in disguise, or anything. It's a military raid, and they are still in uniform.

How can the Rev. Wainwright read a version of the Bible that didn't make it into churches until the 1970's onwards. (He says the third grace is 'Love', when his Bible would have said 'Charity').

Judson has either come up with the Prisoner's Dilemma seven years early (or has invented Connect 4 thirty one years early...).

Jean and Phyllis mention Hollywood actress Jane Russell - even though she didn't become famous enough for them to have heard of her until 1946.

Why does Judson fail to spot that some of the runes he's been studying so assiduously weren't there the day before?

Why does Millington order all the chess sets to be destroyed, if he's one of Fenric's agents and the "Evil from the Dawn of Time" wants another game with the Doctor?

Why booby-trap his own chess set with something that doesn't go off straight away? It kindly gives you plenty of time to notice it and get away before going Boom!

Who was it intended for anyway? If the Doctor, then again that makes no sense as far as Fenric's plan to restage the game goes.

How can his office resemble the Nazi one that closely - even down to the files and books? 

Security at his top secret establishment is lax, to say the least. The Doctor forges signatures in front of people and no-one bats an eyelid. Ace has a rucksack containing a folding ladder and explosives, but no-one bothers to search her anyway.

(Ace does give a reason for carrying the ladder - she'd rather go rock climbing - but isn't using a ladder just a bit of a cheat?).

Just as with Josiah Smith, Millington fails to do anything with the Doctor and Ace - like lock them up or shoot them as spies - straight away, even though he knows they are not the people he was expecting. Why tolerate their presence at all? (Doesn't he realise there's a war on?).

Fenric is formless - seeming to simply inhabit people's bodies. So how exactly does he get killed when Sorin perishes?  Why doesn't he just jump into someone else, or does he have to have some sort of physical contact with them? Would have been nice to know about this if that's the case.

If the Ancient One comes from a world polluted by this toxin, might it not be immune to its effects, or at least have some resistance to it?

Last, but by no means least, that seduction scene... OMG the dialogue's bad. Everyone bangs on about how Ace was this realistic working class London girl  but who on earth talks like that? Trouble is, the soldier's lines are just as pretentious. 

One or other of them would simply have asked if they fancied a snog surely...

Michael Keating 1947 - 2026

Very sorry to hear today of the death of actor Michael Keating, at the age of 79. 

He may only have ever appeared in one Doctor Who story - The Sun Makers, playing the rebel Goudry - but he then became famous in sci-fi circles for playing the cowardly but loveable thief Vila in Blake's 7 - a series whose fandom very much overlaps with that of Doctor Who. 

In Blake's 7, he formed a popular sparring act with Paul Darrow's Avon, the two often being paired up for sub-plots. One episode in which he got to feature prominently was the one which guest starred Colin Baker - Season 3's City at the Edge of the World.

Vila was the only character to appear in every episode, across all four seasons.

If you've been buying the B7 Blu-ray box-sets over the last couple of years, like me, you'll have seen that he is one of the main contributors to the documentaries and archive convention spots.

Later roles included an appearance in Casualty, in which he guested opposite his old leader Gareth Thomas, and he had a recurring role as a church minister in EastEnders.

RIP.

Inspirations: The Pilot

Not to be confused with the unscreened version of An Unearthly Child, which is often referred to as "The Pilot" - but for Steven Moffat it was designed to fulfil the same purpose of allowing people to start watching the series. The term employed was a "soft reset".

This wasn't something new for the series. As well as the obvious relaunches - the 1996 TV Movie and Rose - there were also soft resets with The Tomb of the Cybermen and Spearhead From Space in the classic era, designed to act as jumping-on adventures for new viewers. The Eleventh Hour also sees the series dispense with all associations from the previous RTD era.

The only character already established here, other than the Doctor, is Nardole, who has appeared in the last two Christmas Specials - but knowing who, or what, he is isn't important right now.

Clara has gone, and River Song's story has finally been wound up. You'll recall that Moffat hadn't known he was going to be producing a sixth season - expecting Chris Chibnall to take over with his own new companion, and he had cleared the decks to facilitate this.

Time has moved on for the Doctor and he is now lecturing at a university - something he has been doing for quite some time we learn. There's a big metal vault in the cellars which has something to do with why he is here. There's a Police Box in his rooms, and on his desk are a mug full of sonic screwdrivers, and photographs of his granddaughter Susan and River Song - his first and last to date companions. The desk items are there to please the existing fans and to establish that this is a continuation of a series which began in November 1963, without alienating new viewers.

We find out what this is all about through the eyes of the new companion, Bill Potts, who is the first openly gay companion in the series (Captain Jack slept with anything). She serves in the university canteen but wants to better herself, and the Doctor sees the potential in her - electing to allow her to join his lectures whilst tutoring her privately. She is the agent through which the new viewers get into the series.

This was inspired by a performance of Educating Rita which Moffat had seen in Glasgow. This 1980 Willy Russell play told of the relationship between a working class Liverpudlian hairdresser and her older, boozy college professor, and how each ultimately has a positive impact on the other. It was adapted for the cinema in 1983, starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters.

The plan was to have a funnier companion, straight talking, who would ask the sort of questions which the audience might ask and view things through their eyes. They would also be shown to have watched sci-fi films and TV series, as Moffat had noted that people in Doctor Who rarely acted like they had seen time machines and aliens on screen. For instance, the Doctor tells Bill that the TARDIS has a "cloaking device", just as he had done in the TV Movie - but here he's using language someone who has seen Star Trek would understand.

As well as her sexuality, it was decided that Bill should also be non-white, following criticisms about lack of diversity and representation in Doctor Who and other popular dramas, made by Sir Lenny Henry in a BAFTA speech.

Casting for Bill - a name Moffat heard David Tennant call Billie Piper during production on the 50th Anniversary story - carried a codename. This was "Meantown" - an anagram of 'Woman Ten', as in the female companion for the tenth series. Meantown was also a placeholder title for the story in its earliest form.

Three audition pieces were written, which all found their way into the series in one shape or form. The first was the companion talking about someone she fancied who she serves in the canteen (a boy at this stage). The second was their introduction to the TARDIS interior after escaping from some robots. The companion argued that there was no protection inside a small box made of wood. The third scene was set in a corridor in a Dalek city, where the companion made comments about the monsters' stair-climbing capabilities and kitchen / bathroom appliance design elements.

Once cast, Pearl Mackie wanted to view some old stories but Moffat discouraged this - feeling her lack of knowledge about the series and its tropes would benefit her performance.

The working title for the story became A Star In Her Eye - a reference both to the fact that Bill's would-be girlfriend Heather has an actual star shape in one of her eyes, and to Bill's growing admiration for the Doctor.

The Doctor hangs an "Out of Order" sign on the TARDIS door - just as he did in The War Machines.

The biggest fan-pleasing moment is when the TARDIS arrives in the middle of a Dalek battle. We see that they are fighting the Movellans. The Dalek-Movellan war was first introduced in Destiny of the Daleks, and its outcome formed the background to Resurrection of the Daleks.

Bill was first introduced to the public in a mini-episode titled Friend From The Future, filmed on this futuristic corridor set and featuring a Dalek.

Early in the development of the season, Moffat considered the occupant of the mysterious vault to be either Missy or Davros. Fan speculation was that it might be Susan, after seeing her photograph on the desk - the reasoning behind which was that she had been placed in the vault to protect her from the Time War.

Next time: AI Goes Wrong No.632. Yes, it's the return of one of Mr Moffat's favourite story ideas. The Doctor and Bill visit a beautiful colony planet, but find little to smile about...

Episode 208: The Wheel in Space (5)

Synopsis:

The Doctor and Jamie have gone to the loading bay of the Wheel to confirm the theory that the Cybermen have been smuggled aboard. After finding the Bernalium crate with its false bottom, they hear a sound and see a Cyberman descending the steps into the bay...

They take cover and the Cyberman moves on. The Doctor uses the visiphone to inform Gemma and the others in the communications centre that his suspicions have been confirmed: the Cybermen are indeed on the Wheel. 

He has realised that they do not want to destroy the space station, but their next step is likely to kill its crew. The most obvious means would be to suffocate everyone as they do not need oxygen, so he advocates sealing all the airlock doors. Gemma gives the order.

The Doctor is then interrupted as he sees movement in the corner. It is a Cybermat. A second one then appears, and they move towards them. The Doctor asks the crew to quickly set up a variable audio-frequency on the visiphone.

He and Jamie cover their ears as best they can as a high pitched whine fills the loading bay. The Cybermats begin to lose control and are destroyed, one exploding as it careers into the wall.

The Doctor picks the other up to show the crew, to let them see what they are up against. He and Jamie then head back to the communications centre.

Leo and Tanya then detect an energy emission coming from the Power House, but it doesn't belong to the station. A Cyberman is operating its own transmitter device there, consulting the Planner and its spaceship.

It reports the loss of the Cybermats, and the Planner states that someone on the Wheel must be familiar with their technology. The Cyberman also reports that the X-ray laser is now fully functioning, and the station is unable to contact Earth.

The crew discuss the situation, realising that Earth won't know they have a problem for another two hours, when they fail to make their regular check-in call.

One of the wrecked Cybermats has been brought to the communications centre, where Zoe shows it to Bennett. However, he has completely withdrawn and even refuses to accept what he is seeing. The Doctor advises Gemma that she will have to take over command.

Jamie and Zoe are also discussing their predicament. She feels frustrated that she cannot help more with this emergency as it's one that she was never trained for. She has come to accept that she relies too much on facts and logic because that is all she has ever had pumped into her brain all her life.

Leo is trying to contact other sections of the Wheel.

Flannigan goes to the Power House where he finds Vallance and Laleham, who are ignoring Leo's calls. When he tries to answer, the two men attack him. In the struggle Vallance fires at him, but hits and kills Laleham instead.

A Cyberman then enters and subjects Flannigan to its hypnotic beam. It is told that the communications centre is protected by its own forcefield, operated only from within the room itself.

As Zoe tends to Bennett, Leo and Casali get a fix on the approaching meteorite shower and learn that it is bigger than they thought.

A call suddenly comes through from the Power House, and Flannigan reports that the X-ray laser is now fully operational.

The weapon is deployed and tested.

The Doctor then explains the Cyberman plan to Gemma and the others - of how they ionised a star to deflect the meteorites and then used the Cybermats to wreck the Bernalium supplies in order that the rocket would be searched for more. Whoever went across would then be hypnotised into smuggling them aboard the Wheel. They clearly do not wish the station to be destroyed, so have some other purpose for it. Their goal is the invasion of Earth, in order to plunder it of its resources.

He then asks Jamie for the Time Vector Generator, but is told that it was in his coat pocket. It must have fallen out when he was brought over unconscious from the rocket, and must still be there. No-one can be spared to fetch it, and the Doctor is needed here - so Jamie is told to go and get it as only he knows what it looks like.

On learning of the forcefield around the communications centre, the Planner gives fresh orders to the Cybermen, and one of them leaves the Power House with Vallance.

It has been agreed by Gemma that Zoe will go with Jamie to the rocket, and she escorts them both to be suited up.

When Leo discovers that the pair are about to make a spacewalk just as a meteorite storm hits, he rounds angrily on the Doctor for allowing this. Not only will there be debris from the meteorites but there is a radiation risk as well. He is also unhappy that Gemma will have to find her way back to the centre alone.

Gemma, Zoe and Jamie are passing through the Oxygen Supply area when they find a dead crewman.

After the youngsters have passed through the airlock to begin their spacewalk, Gemma spies a Cyberman enter with Vallance. The hypnotised crewman explains how the air supply system operates. The Cyberman gives him some ozone capsules, which should be fed into each section's supply. This will prove fatal to the crew.

The X-ray laser begins firing on the meteorites. Gemma contacts the Doctor by visiphone and tells him to ensure Leo switches the centre's air supply over to its own self-contained system as the Cybermen are about to poison the main supply.

The Doctor then sees a Cyberman appear on screen behind Gemma, and urges her to run. She fires on it, using the dead crewman's blaster, but to no effect. It shoots her dead as she tries to escape.

Outside the Wheel, Jamie and Zoe can see the destruction of some of the meteorites - but others are hurtling towards them...

Data:

Written by David Whitaker (from a story by Kit Pedler)

Recorded: Friday 3rd May 1968 - Riverside Studio 1

First broadcast: 5.15pm, Saturday 25th May, 1968

Ratings: 6.8 million / AI 57

VFX: Bill King & Trading Post

Designer: Derek Dodd

Director: Tristan De Vere Cole

Critique:

Episode 5 of The Wheel in Space is the last of Doctor Who's missing episodes for which we have telesnaps. Most of Season 6 survives in the archives, but the lost episodes of The Invasion and The Space Pirates were never captured visually in this way.

Whilst the Cybermen in Episode 4 were stated to have hand weapons in its original script, for the death of Nell, as Gemma was then named, it was a blast from the chest unit which killed her. A square of light superimposed over the chest unit was suggested by Whitaker.

The Cyberman Planner was said to glow with power.

The scene between Zoe and Jamie, where she discusses her frustration about her reliance on logic and facts was not present in the original script. This was added by Derrick Sherwin in early March to help develop further the character of the new companion.

A scene was cut late in the day, of a crewman in the Oxygen Store attempting to use the visiphone. A Cyberman attacked him but he was too late to draw his blaster and was killed. Instead, Gemma, Jamie and Zoe simply find the man already dead when they arrived in the room.

Wendy Padbury and Frazer Hines filmed their spacewalk at Ealing on Friday Friday 22nd March. Hines wore a black Windak pressure suit, whilst Padbury donned a yellow version. This was her first work on the series. Suspended on kirby wires in front of black drapes, smoke and lighting effects were employed to indicate the destruction of the meteorites going on around them.

Model footage of the meteorite shower had taken place at Television Centre's Puppet Theatre the previous day.

These had small explosive charges within them, detonated electronically via the wire on which they spun. Also filmed for this episode were some effects shots of the Cybermats going out of control. 

For the firing of the X-ray laser, each frame of film was individually scratched to give the jagged line effect.

The day following the recording of the fourth instalment, Sunday 28th April, had seen Hines once again filming on location for The Dominators, and both he and Padbury were taken out of rehearsals on Wednesday 1st May for more work at Ealing.

Recording on the story moved studios once again - this time returning to Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, which had been home to the series almost continuously from The Dalek Invasion of Earth to The Moonbase.

As this episode was going into studio on the eve of Zoe's first on-screen appearance, Peter Bryant organised another photocall for Padbury, which would help advertise her arrival in the following day's broadcast. They are an odd assortment of images. In some, Padbury is seen having her feet massaged on set by her producer, whilst another batch of images were taken outside the studio at a nearby demolition site, with Padbury posing in front of rubble and a bonfire. Publicity material now described Zoe as a "fifteen year old astronaut", though the actress had earlier told one newspaper reporter that her character was seventeen. Both the Mirror and the Mail carried items next day, the former concentrating on Zoe's space age fashion.

The material needed for the cliffhanger to Episode 3 was finally remounted during a special insert session between 5.30 - 6pm. This had been due to the problems encountered with the Cyberman voice distortion device on Friday 19th April. This remount required only the two Cybermen and the actors playing Vallance and Laleham in their spacesuit costumes, which they would not be wearing during the main evening session.

It was decided to record this episode on 35mm film instead of the usual 625-line video, so that it would be easier to edit.

The recording began with a restaging of the closing sequence from the previous week, with the Doctor and Jamie discovering that a Cyberman was approaching.

Only two Cybermats were used in studio for the attack on the Doctor and Jamie. The one which crashed into the wall and exploded was pulled along on a nylon thread. It was then removed from the set as a light flare was superimposed on the picture, to make it look as if it had completely disintegrated. Smoke was pumped through the other prop.

Much use was made of TV monitors on both the loading bay and communications centre sets - with Troughton looking to left or right to make it appear as if he could see people on either side of the camera at the opposite end. This would become a frequent bit of business for Troughton.

The oscilloscope wave effect was used again this week - both for the hypnotising of Flannigan but also for the blaster shot as Vallance accidentally kills Laleham.

Anne Ridler, who was suffering from a trapped nerve in her leg, swapped costume with a stunt woman - Dorothy Ford - as Gemma had to fall down a short flight of steps on being shot by the Cyberman. Still images of Ridler lying on her back on the floor were taken, to be made into photo-captions which would be used the following week for POV shots of her body - this being her final work on the story.

The credits rolled over a shot of the spinning meteorites.

This is the very first episode of Doctor Who which I clearly recall having watched, so I have a bit of a soft spot for it. Long before Revenge of the Cybermen came along, I could remember an episode in which there were Cybermen and Cybermats on a space station, and this is the only episode which fits the bill. I even remembered people floating in space.

It's such a pity I can't watch it again - maybe one day - as I think it is the best of the six episodes. We have a lot less of the personal politics of the Wheel crew (Bennett quite literally sits this episode out), the Doctor is up and about and getting involved, and the Cybermen are more active. It's also one of only two episodes of this story in which the Cybermats actually pose a menace as well.

The death of Gemma, who has become a friend to the Doctor and a mentor figure for Zoe, stands out as a truly shocking moment. You would have bet money on her surviving this story to the end, but presumably Zoe has to have little or no reason for wanting to stay on the Wheel after all this - so her friend has to die. She dies bravely, blasting away at a Cyberman after being able to warn her colleagues about the plan to poison the air supply - only to then be shot in the back and she tries to escape.

The Cybermen will never again be quite as ruthlessly inhuman as they are here.

This instalment also moves Zoe's story along, as she opens up to Jamie about her feelings of inadequacy when having to face anything which she hasn't been trained for. He has come across as mildly irritated by her up to this point, but acts to reassure her after she has offloaded her concerns to him. He begins to see that behind her serious "brainbox" façade, she is as human as he is.

There's a controversial moment when the Doctor coerces Jamie into fetching the Time Vector Generator from the rocket. The Doctor basically accuses his companion of losing it in the first place, and so it's his fault they don't have it. He then does what Leo gets so angry about - sending the two youngsters on a hazardous spacewalk smack dab in the middle of a meteorite shower, and Gemma has to leave the safety of the communications centre to get them on their way. The Doctor claims that he is needed here, which is why he can't go himself - but what, pray tell, does this entail? He just stands about watching the crew deal with the meteorites with the laser. He could easily have gone with Gemma to make sure she got back safely - so it can be argued that the Doctor is indirectly responsible for her death..

Trivia:

• The ratings continue their rollercoaster ride, dropping by almost 2 million on last week's figure. The last weekend in May 1968 was the Spring Bank Holiday in Britain, which probably explains this - people being away or otherwise out and about enjoying the long weekend.
• Only three very short clips exist from this episode - all part of the fight between Flannigan, Laleham and Vallance. These were Australian censor clips, recovered in 1996.
• There appear to be Cybermats unaccounted for. We saw one get sealed in quick-setting plastic, and the Doctor causes two to be destroyed in this episode - but according to the telesnap from Episode One below, there were six despatched across to the Wheel, and the Cyberman reports to the Planner that all have been destroyed. There ought to be three more still at large - unless the variable audio-frequency business was broadcast beyond just the loading bay.

• Wendy Padbury was photographed sitting in a distinctive silver padded chair this week. It had first been seen in the third episode, in a corner of the medical bay beside the Doctor's bed. This is known as an Elda chair, designed in 1963. We will see it again, with black upholstery, being used by the European Controller in Day of the Daleks, and it also furnishes the office of Morgus in The Caves of Androzani. Even a second-hand Elda can command several thousand pounds at auction.

Story 316: Lucky Day

In which Ruby Sunday finds love - but is new beau Conrad Clark all that he seems...?

The Doctor and Belinda visit London on New Year's Eve, 2006, as part of the scheme to get the TARDIS to May 2025. They are spotted by an 8 year old boy - Conrad Clark - who witnesses the Police Box vanish into thin air. When he tries to tell his abusive mother about what he has seen, he is disbelieved.

As Conrad grows up, he begins collecting information about sightings of the blue box and its owner.

In 2024, he comes across it once again in an alleyway behind a closed down London department store. He enters the shop and spies on the Doctor, who is travelling with Ruby at this time. They are hunting a vicious creature called a Shreek. It uses a pheromone to mark Conrad as future prey.

He captures an image of Ruby and the TARDIS on his phone before it dematerialises.

The following year, Ruby is no longer travelling with the Doctor - wishing to stay behind to get to know her birth mother with whom she has only recently been reunited. She is troubled by her experiences with the Doctor and wants someone to talk to about them. Conrad is a successful podcaster on the subject of extraterrestrials, and she agrees to go on his show to discuss her personal experience of alien life. He is particularly interested in hearing about UNIT, a representative of which he has been trying to get on his podcast for some time.

The pair continue to meet afterwards and are soon dating. Conrad lets Ruby know of the incident in the department store, and she explains that the Shreek was seen again recently, but was captured by UNIT. It would have returned exactly a year after marking him in order to kill him. She gives him an antidote which prevents the creatures from tracing their prey.

Some time later, she agrees to spend the weekend with him at the village where he grew up, meeting some of his old friends. On getting off the bus, Ruby notices the indicator display going haywire.

That evening, the lights in the pub begin to go on and off, and Ruby decides to give UNIT a call.

Kate Stewart reports no anomalous activity in her area, and confirms that the Shreek is safely locked up.

Conrad's friends are asking Ruby about her experiences with the Doctor and UNIT when a customer rushes into the pub claiming to have seen a monster outside.

Ruby goes to the window and sees a Shreek prowling in the shadows. A second one is then spotted.

Conrad reveals that he never took the antidote, wishing to experience what it would be like to be the Doctor, confronting alien creatures.

UNIT are summoned and arrive quickly on the scene. With Kate are Shirley Bingham and Colonel Ibrahim, and a junior operative named Jordan. Jordan reports that there is still no anomalous activity registering, which Kate and Shirley find odd.

The two Shreek unmask themselves as friends of Conrad in costume. He reveals a T-shirt with "Think Tank" written across the chest - an on-line outfit which has been accusing UNIT of lying to the general public about aliens in order to justify public money being poured into it.

Conrad and his friends are all members, out to discredit the organisation - and he has exploited Ruby's love for him to get to them.

They take video footage on their phones, which is soon all over the internet, making UNIT out to be liars at best, and a danger to democracy at worst.

Conrad is arrested for stirring up public disorder, but released 24 hours later as social and mainstream media take his side.

Ruby is forced to shelter at UNIT HQ, where the Skreech is about to be transferred to Geneva.

Conrad has published a list of all UNIT personnel, and Kate wants to know where he got this information. Shirley points out that he could only have got it from someone within the organisation.

Downstairs, Jordan stuns a guard and lets Conrad into the building, picking up the guard's gun as he enters. Jordan is unhappy at the use of weapons and the pair struggle - the gun going off and shooting the UNIT operative. His treachery has been identified upstairs as his computer and phone records are accessed, and he is found to follow conspiracy theorists and right-wing content.

Conrad ascends to the command centre in a lift, demanding that Kate reveal the secret of their deception about aliens to the world. He believes all the recent alien activity to have been faked, with actors dressed in costumes.

Kate unseals the containment cube and the Skreech is released, so that Conrad can see for himself what alien creatures are really like.

He runs in panic, whilst UNIT allows his many thousands of followers to follow his live feed.

Cornered by the creature he admits his own lies about UNIT. Ruby saves his life by tasering the Skreech, but it suddenly lashes out and bites into Conrad's arm.

By morning, public opinion has swung away from Conrad and his like. He and Jordan are in hospital, and Ruby can return to her family.

Some time later Conrad is in a prison cell when the TARDIS materialises around him. The Doctor attempts to make him alter his mindset about alien life, but also to vent his anger at him for what he did to his friends.

Conrad is unrepentant, however.

After the TARDIS departs, he is confronted by the Governor - Mrs Flood - who has come to free him...

Lucky Day was written by Pete McTighe and was first broadcast on Saturday 3rd May 2025.

McTighe currently handles the specially filmed mini-episodes which help trail The Collection Blu-ray boxsets, having previously written episodes for the Thirteenth Doctor - Kerblam! and Praxeus. The themes of ocean pollution in the latter would be carried over by him into an entire spin-off serial - The War Between the Land and the Sea.

The idea for this episode came from Russell T Davies, however. Millie Gibson had left the series after only one season, which many fans were unhappy about as the character hadn't been allowed to fully develop. RTD2 had stated, however, that this wouldn't be the last viewers saw of Ruby. She had made a very brief cameo in the 2024 Christmas Special, but would have a better role to play in Series 15.

This episode was made back-to-back with The Robot Revolution, which is why Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu feature so little. McTighe wanted his story to concentrate on Ruby and on Kate Stewart, whilst examining the potential toxicity of social media, disinformation and conspiracy theories.

He claimed he wanted to do a story that looked at what happened to a companion after they had left the TARDIS - though this had already been well handled in School Reunion, and we have also seen what Rose, Martha, Mickey, Graham, Ryan and Captain Jack have all done - being inspired by the Doctor to carry on the fight against alien threats after parting company with him.

So far this year, so Series 14. 

RTD2 seems to think he has a winning formula for how to structure a season on his hands. Start off with a disposable sci-fi romp, then have a story featuring one of the Pantheon of Discord. Make the third one a story involving space soldiers on a hostile alien planet. 

The fourth should be a contemporary story, Doctor-lite, which focusses on Ruby Sunday. It should have elements of folk horror about it - spooky things happening around a quiet village pub, where the locals pull her leg - before suddenly doglegging into something more political. UNIT get to feature, and the villain is a bit of a fascist.

It's 73 Yards again...

The episode is built on a rather stupid premise - Ruby electing to go public and talk about UNIT and the Doctor on a podcast. She has a direct link to UNIT, a member of which is the Doctor's former travelling companion Mel Bush - yet she doesn't have anyone to talk to about her experiences? Then there's Graham's companions support group, of which Mel and Kate Stewart are members...

There then follows a rather bland courtship between her and Conrad, which goes on a little too long.

Things only pick up with that sudden dogleg, when we discover that he isn't what he purports to be and the Shreek in the village are just his friends dressed up.

It's also revealed that he is a nasty piece of work who exploited Ruby emotionally, purely to get at UNIT. He lures the organisation into a trap which will allow him to expose their lies. Aliens are all faked, say Think Tank.

In this he proves successful, but then it's his turn to do something really stupid. He has UNIT on the run, discredited in the public's eyes and about to be scrutinised by the government, who may well withdraw funding and even confiscate their technology. It's surely everything he wants - but he embarks on a reckless mission to break into the high security, well defended, UNIT HQ - helping himself to a gun as he does so - supposedly just to get Kate to admit on camera that he was right. He's waving a gun about in a building full of soldiers. Why put yourself at such risk when you've already gotten everything you set out to achieve? McTighe needs an ending and Conrad needs his comeuppance, but plot logic has left the (UNIT HQ) building.

Apart from seeing that his mother wasn't very nice to him, we never really get to understand the motivation behind Conrad. The Doctor claims he's simply a pathetic little man out to make a name for himself at the expense of others, but that doesn't quite justify such extreme actions.

There's an earlier Doctor Who story I can see behind Conrad as a character, and it's one of RTD2's own - Love & Monsters. Conrad is basically a negative version of Elton. 

Yes, he's the anti-Pope.

Childhood encounter with the Doctor which influences his future life - developing an obsession with him / aliens in general. Goes on-line to discuss this obsession. Adult encounter with Doctor and companion as they pursue a savage reptilian creature in a deserted building. Joins group of like-minded people who share his obsession. For Elton exploiting Jackie Tyler's affections to get to Rose, read Conrad's exploitation of Ruby's affections to get to UNIT. Doctor turns up late in the day to berate him, after not featuring very much at all in the episode.

The scenes set in the village - up until you find out about the fake monsters - is probably the most effective part of the episode. We see the Skreech moving around in the shadows, or silhouetted against misty nocturnal skies, creeping around the village churchyard. As with 73 Yards, the best bit turns out to be a bit of a dead end and things take a political turn, and it spins off into quite a different type of story.

The main guest actor - the only one actually - is Jonah Hauer-King, who plays Conrad. The British-American actor is best known for playing the prince in Disney's live remake of The Little Mermaid, and more recently he featured in the remake of slasher pic I Know What You Did Last Summer.

In 2024 he took on the main role in TV drama The Tattooist of Auschwitz. 

It was already announced before the series aired that he would play Ruby's boyfriend, and that Conrad would feature in more than one episode.

The only other guest of note is Kareem Alexander, who plays Think Tank's UNIT mole Jordan.

The UNIT regulars appear, with mention that Mel is away in Australia. Ruth Madeley is back as Shirley, having temporarily been replaced as Scientific Advisor by Morris in the Series 14 finale.

Ruby's family members also make a return, including Faye McKeever as her mother Louise.

When Conrad does the round of chat shows etc, we see a few minor celebrities play themselves, and Lachele Carl makes a return appearance as news anchor Trinity Wells.

Anita Dobson makes her latest appearance as Mrs Flood, this time appearing as the prison governor who releases Conrad at the conclusion of the episode.

Overall, I actually quite enjoyed this on first watch, but have gone off it since - mainly because I know where things are heading. Unfair, I know, but there you go. Kisses to the past are all very well, but the parallels with Love & Monsters and 73 Yards are too many to ignore - especially the latter, as it had only been broadcast 12 months before.

Things you might like to know:

• This is the third time that something known as 'Think Tank' has featured in the series. The first was the "frontiers of science" institute which turned out to be a front for the fascistic Scientific Reform Society in Robot. The name reappeared in the unfinished Tom Baker story Shada - the space station on which Skagra drained the minds of its leading scientists. There's no stated connection between Conrad's group and the SRS outfit, other than the right-wing ideology they share, and the fact that both are brought down by UNIT. The writer did claim this to be a deliberate reference to Baker's first story.
• He also claimed that the village was inspired by Devil's End, which is the setting for The Daemons.
• Playing the pub landlord is Paul Jericho, who appeared in the classic iteration of the series as the unnamed Castellan in both Arc of Infinity and The Five Doctors.
• The mannequins in the department store, for adult Conrad's first sighting of the Doctor and Ruby, were a deliberate nod to the Autons in Rose. The location used for this sequence was Howell's Department Store in the centre of Cardiff - which had been Henrik's in that 2005 episode. 
• According to McTighe, the Skreech were inspired by a childhood nightmare about dog-like monsters which lurked in the dark.
• In order that the fake Skreech looked a little artificial, the actual design was shown to another designer who then had to replicate it from memory.
• The creatures were first mentioned in a 2024 Doctor Who novel - Caged, by Una McCormack.
• In terms of timescales, young Conrad is meeting the Doctor and Belinda after The Well, whilst his encounter with the Doctor and Ruby in the department store follows on from The Devil's Chord. The Doctor's visit to the prison takes place, for him, before The Robot Revolution - which is why he mentions a "he" telling him about Belinda in that episode.