TARDIS Logs: The Edge of Destruction

Where and When:

On leaving Skaro, the TARDIS has suffered a major malfunction. The travellers have been knocked unconscious, and wake to find themselves completely disoriented. The ship is apparently stationary - and it has definitely left Skaro as we, and the Thals, saw it dematerialise - and they have to work out what has happened, and where they now are.

There are clues. ("We've been given nothing else but clues", says Barbara at one point).

When the doors open they see only a brilliant white void. It's so bright the companions have to shield their eyes when they look outside.

The scanner shows a series of images, three of which comprise a sequence - a moon-like planet, a view of a solar system, then a blinding light.

The Doctor eventually works out that this represents their journey.

He has used the Fast Return switch on the console, to presumably retrace their most recent journeys. We can assume that he planned to go back to Totter's Lane, London, in 1963, to rid himself of his unwanted passengers. But is that how the switch works? We'll come back to this shortly.

Anyway, the switch has jammed and they have travelled back much further than the Doctor intended.

Early fandom believed that they had gone right back to the Big Bang at the start of the universe, but the Doctor clearly states - in his famous soliloquy - that it is the birth of a solar system.

But which one?

He was aiming to get back to Earth, so does that mean that it is our own Solar System?

The scanner sequence is the clue, for the planet which begins it is clearly not Earth. Much later, in the closing moments of The Space Museum, we will discover that it is Skaro.

They have travelled back to the creation of that planet's system.

When that was, it's obviously impossible to know, but if it's anything like our Solar System then we're talking billions of years in the past.

Other Journeys:

I meant to include this subsection from the start, as we heard that the TARDIS had assumed the form of a sedan chair and an ionic column at some point before it became stuck as a Police Box - and then there's Susan's reaction to the book about the French Revolution, which suggested personal experience of the event.

Here the scanner shows an image of the planet Quinnis. This is said to lie in the "Fourth Universe", and it's where the Doctor and Susan nearly lost the TARDIS. She describes this as "four or five journeys back", so not that long before London 1963.

The landscape resembles a primordial swamp, and we can hear the roars of strange animals.

Much later, the Doctor will claim that travel between universes was relatively easy when the Time Lords were around, so it may be the case that this actually is another universe.

However, David Whitaker was a writer, not a scientist, and he'll provide some very dodgy astrophysics over the next few years. Let's just say that he probably meant a galaxy, and leave it at that for now...

The Doctor and Susan have visited late Victorian England at some point, as they have met dramatist WS Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan, famous for the Savoy Operas. They were active between 1871 - 1896. The Doctor "acquired" an Ulster coat from them.

The TARDIS:

The TARDIS has been programmed to do something which will mean its destruction and those of its occupants.

It "refuses" to do this, and sets about warning everyone. However, rather than stick a message up on the scanner or use any of the standard warning systems which the ship must possess, it provides a number of clues - which are cryptic to say the least.

Unless everyone is concussed, it appears to initially affect the minds of Ian, Barbara and Susan - causing them to suffer a temporary amnesia and confusion.

It then employs the scanner. We have the sequence mentioned above, which illustrates a journey back through time from a planet to the creation of its solar system, but before that we get a still image of a pleasant country landscape, and the hostile environment of Quinnis. The Doctor points out that these are only photographs, but they have sound. These landscape images coincide with the opening and closing of the main doors, operating on their own.

The sequence is repeated.

A time element is then added, when the TARDIS somehow manages to melt clock and watch faces. How it achieves this we cannot tell. Does it do it physically, or is it actually only in the minds of the travellers, like a shared hallucination? 

Time is "given back" to the travellers by the sounding of an alarm from the Fault Locator. This device is still in the same place - but it no longer reads like a seismograph or lie detector, with inked needles on paper. Instead it runs through an alphanumerical code sequence - A1, A2 etc. A light indicates the status of the individual components. 

The Doctor has difficulty reading this as it blurs before his eyes. 

A short time later the entire machine lights up - suggesting that everything is failing. 

Eventually the Doctor starts to accept Barbara's contention that the TARDIS is causing all these strange incidents itself, as a means of warning them. He accepts that the ship can think - but only as a machine and "not as you or I do". For him it is simply a machine intelligence, devoid of any kind of consciousness.

The interesting thing about all this odd behaviour from the TARDIS is that the Doctor's logic and scientific reasoning is blind to what it is trying to do.

It is Barbara's human instinct and intuition which solve the mystery. The TARDIS appears to be more in tune with the new passengers than with its own operator and his granddaughter. 

We have to go back to why it chose these particular methods of warning, rather than the more straightforward mechanical ones. It must have some sort of consciousness, which operates above the purely machine level.

It's fair to say that this is yet another reason for doubting that the Doctor built the TARDIS, as he simply doesn't understand it beyond its role as a space / time machine.

We learn more about the console itself - especially the central glass cylinder and its internal mechanism. (This will later become known as the Time Rotor). According to the Doctor, the rise and fall of this indicates the extent of the power thrust. The power source of the TARDIS lies beneath the console, and were the cylinder to be pushed up too far and come free, this power would escape and effectively destroy the ship.

Near the beginning of the story, the Doctor speculates on the cause of the breakdown, and worries that it might even be the "main unit", but doesn't elaborate on what this is.

In An Unearthly Child we saw how the Doctor could electrify part of the console, and here the TARDIS does this itself. It generates an electrical charge, targeting the back of the neck, which can knock out anyone even approaching any part of the console other than the section it wishes to draw their attention to. This includes the scanner control - and the Fast Return Switch. 

This is actually marked on the console in felt-tip pen, and seems to be a removable component which plugs into the console. There are two theories as to how this functions.

The first is that it simply takes the TARDIS rapidly back in time, and that's what it seems to do here if the solar system being created is indeed Skaro's.

The Doctor actually says: "I had hoped to reach your planet Earth. Skaro was in the future and I used the Fast Return switch". Ian then replies: "You've sent us back too far...".

Setting aside the fact that events on Skaro may well have actually occurred in Earth's past, theory number two is that the switch causes the TARDIS to retrace its own journey - traveling in reverse gear as it were - so that he can get back to Totter's Lane in 1963.

The problem with this second theory is that a stuck switch shouldn't take the TARDIS back to the birth of a solar system, but to its own creation on the Doctor's home planet.

However it works, the problem is traced to a spring inside the mechanism. This has stuck so, as far as the TARDIS is concerned, the Doctor was holding it down the whole time. It therefore didn't register as a fault.

As well as the Fault Locator, another change is to the Food Machine. It certainly wasn't there in The Daleks, but there is now a separate button for water. It's in the middle of the other controls, and there's an indicator light above left, which let's you know when it's empty. Quite when the Doctor found time to add this is anyone's guess. Or was it the TARDIS itself? Do the Doctor's people not need this as much as human beings, so he - or it - decided it was necessary to accommodate passengers from Earth? I say the TARDIS might be responsible as the layout of the console room changes considerably from story to story, even when there is no time for the Doctor to have made adjustments himself. 

Whoever installed it, it provides the water in little plastic bags. 

You now have to go through an internal double door to reach the Food Machine, whereas in The Daleks it was simply behind a partition wall, off the console room. 

The Edge of Destruction introduces us to the travellers' bedrooms. We see Susan's room, which contains an angled bed, with a table and metal chair. She has a plant on the table. The bed folds up into the wall when not in use. There must be a wardrobe off screen, as we have already seen her change outfit more than once, and here she dons her sleeping apparel - a black smock-like garment. We'll see Barbara wear the same night gear, though Ian manages to find an ordinary dressing gown (but no pyjamas). There doesn't appear to be any need for sheets or blankets. 

There isn't a separate room for everyone, as Barbara has to share Susan's bedspace on a second fold-down bed. Presumably Ian has his own room - unless he's in with the Doctor.

A new addition to the TARDIS medical supplies is a bandage which is impregnated with medicated bands. This ointment seeps into the wound and when the colour fades it has done its work. It comes in a long roll, and you simply cut off the length required with scissors.

(Susan has a pair of scissors which look like they are used for dressmaking, so she may make some of her own clothes - when she's not threatening schoolteachers with them or attacking her mattress...).

Once the problem has been resolved, the TARDIS continues its journey. After landing, the Doctor and Barbara have a conversation in the rest area where the Food Machine is located. This now features a long, low couch. There's a small round table as well, but no obvious chairs.

The Doctor says that the TARDIS has "an extensive wardrobe", and we see Ian wearing that Ulster coat mentioned above, whilst Susan has picked out cold weather garments for Barbara.

The TARDIS appears to have been sitting at its new destination for some time before anyone has ventured outside, as no-one has noticed the giant footprint in the snow just outside the doors...

Behind the Scenes:

A popular alternative title for this story is "Inside the Spaceship". Early fandom also used "Beyond the Sun", but we know that this was an episode title for Malcolm Hulke's abandoned "The Hidden Planet" story, as well as the overall title of Brian Hodgson's suite of sound effects for the series.

For many years, the background to this story was that it was written to plug a two week gap in the schedule as the sets for Marco Polo weren't ready yet. This is what the cast certainly believed, as they mention it in interviews. The truth of the matter is that the series was threatened with cancellation due to budgets - and it was the TARDIS set which was mainly to blame.

The series was to be terminated after 13 episodes on the grounds of cost, on the instructions of Donald Baverstock, BBC Controller. Story Editor David Whitaker was therefore asked to come up with two episodes which would complete the run.

Verity Lambert saved the day by pointing out that the cost of the TARDIS had been worked out over 52 weeks, so she was within budget. £500 over 13 weeks would work out at nearly £40pw, whereas the same amount spread over a whole year would come to less than a tenner.

Whitaker then used his two-parter to concentrate on the relationships between the Doctor and his companions, properly introduce the TARDIS, and at the same time save money by only featuring the regulars and an existing set. Designer Ray Cusick only had to add the sleeping area and make some amendments to existing props and set elements.

The large hexagonal metal floor plate which surrounds the console makes a return.

The story relies heavily on lighting effects to conjure mood and menace, and the console room is plunged into darkness, other than a single overhead light, for Hartnell's soliloquy about the birth of a solar system.

When asked about "Fast Return" being written on the console above the switch, in felt-tip pen, Cusick suggested that it was probably put there simply for the benefit of William Hartnell and / or the camera operator to find. The scene is recorded in low lighting after all. Either no-one had thought that it was to get a big close-up, or it had been intended to remove it before recording and someone forgot. 

TARDIS Log: The Daleks

Where and When:

Our first alien planet - Skaro. 

Even Ian and Barbara know that they are no longer on Earth after coming across the Magnedon - a creature the size of a Labrador dog, but with a shell comprising of metal plates and resembling a crocodilian. 

The TARDIS has landed in the middle of a forest, and when the Doctor and his companions emerge they are initially surrounded by a mist, which quickly clears. The trees and plants are unfamiliar, and it is Ian who spots that, despite a breeze, the branches do not stir. It transpires that they have been petrified - and the Doctor thinks not by heat. The soil is ashen.

Susan finds a brittle tulip-like flower, which has retained some colour. She wants to keep a specimen, but Barbara's discovery of the Magnedon causes Ian to crush it in his haste to come to her aid.

The creature is quite dead, however. The Doctor suspects that it had an inner magnetic field and may have used this to draw its prey towards it, if they were also metallic.

Beyond the forest lies a desolate plain, on which sits a large city composed of futuristic buildings.

And beyond that is a mountain.

This city is home to the Daleks - once humanoid but now mutated into small brain-like creatures with vestigial limbs. They inhabit metal casings, created as protective shells which enable them to move around. They can only do so on metal flooring - drawing power through this via static electricity.

They do not inhabit the surface buildings, confining themselves to subterranean levels.

It will be revealed that Skaro was the scene of a devastating nuclear war, involving neutron bombs. The atmosphere is heavily irradiated.

There is another race on Skaro - the Thals. Whilst the Daleks interfered with the evolutionary process by taking to their protective shells, the radiation has allowed the mutation of the Thals to come full circle, and they are now humanoid again - tall, blond and physically perfect. They have developed a drug to counter the radiation.

The war was fought between Thal and Dal - the original name of the Daleks, who were philosophers and teachers.

The Thals were a warrior people, but now live a simple agrarian lifestyle on a plateau many miles from the Dalek city.

They rely on a great rainfall for their crops, and this has failed. (When this disaster befell them is unclear, as the dialogue is contradictory).

They have embarked on an arduous trek under their leader Temmosus to seek help from their old enemies - even though they don't actually know if any have survived. (It is only through Susan that they learn that they have. Despite their life far from here, they must have known about the city and where it was to be located, so may have mounted the odd exploratory expedition to this region).

We only see adult Thals, but dialogue states that there are children present.

The Thals possess history records, which tell of the planet as well as its people. They know that Skaro is the seventh planet of its solar system.

Behind the mountain lies a great lake, which is home to a variety of mutated animals. One looks like an octopus whilst another generates a whirlpool effect before ensnaring its prey.

Surrounding the lake is more forest - though this doesn't appear to have been petrified (shielded by the mountain perhaps).

One of the creatures which inhabits this region resembles a giant caterpillar.

A cave system runs through the mountain from the lake, and the Daleks have used the tunnels to pipe water into the city to generate hydro-electric power.

The Doctor takes some soil samples and tells the Thals that it is not as barren as he first thought, and that life might return within a few generations.

The dating for this story is impossible when you consider only the seven broadcast episodes on their own. 

We can only attempt to work out when The Daleks might be set by looking at the evidence of later Dalek stories.

12 months from now, we'll learn that they are a space-going race by 2164. They are more advanced than the city-bound ones we see here - though they are still reliant on power being beamed to a collection dish on the back of their casings.

The Doctor states in The Dalek Invasion of Earth that these events on Skaro took place in the far distant future - suggesting that they will degenerate and retreat into their old city. This doesn't really fit with the Thal history or what we see here, however.

Everything seems to point to this being the early emergence of the Daleks following the war, encountering the Thals for the first time since that catastrophe.

The big problem is the fact that the Daleks appear to be killed off at the end of the story.

There are two ways around this.

The first is that there is at least one other Dalek colony elsewhere on the planet.

The second - made possible by The Power of the Daleks - is that they have simply been rendered dormant without power. The Daleks in the capsule found on the planet Vulcan are said to have been buried in a mercury swamp for several hundred years - and yet are resurrected when fed power.

For them to be invading Earth in the mid 22nd Century, and if it's the same Daleks, then this story is most likely set in Earth's past, perhaps the 18th or 19th Century.

The TARDIS:

The journey from prehistoric Earth to Skaro lasts only moments. The Doctor asks Susan to check the radiation meter, which is a fixture on the console. It shows normal but, seconds after everyone goes off to freshen up, it climbs quickly into the danger zone. A light flashes, but there is no audible alarm.

The travellers spend the night in the TARDIS before going off to explore the city in the morning - yet no-one spots this flashing light. They even stand around the console when the Doctor operates it, during his act of sabotage - but no-one notices anything.

The alarm must have switched itself off. If so, coupled with the delay in indicating danger, this suggests that the meter is faulty.

Unfortunately, the Doctor broke his handheld meter when he was abducted by Kal in the last story.

Ian suspects that the Doctor doesn't know how to pilot the TARDIS. When asked directly, he claims that if the correct data is known at the start of a journey then the course can be set - but they took off too quickly from the last location to gather this information.

Susan states further that there is a meter fixed to a big bank of computers which can guide the TARDIS, but only if that data is fed in - suggesting some form of 'auto-pilot' function, and the Doctor doesn't have to be at the controls the whole time.

But then she says that the Doctor's inability to navigate the ship is simply down to him being "forgetful".

The Doctor will later think that he might be able to work out their position from the Thal history records, which include a map of local space.

There is an area at the rear of the console room, partitioned off from the rest of the room, which contains a table and chair at which Susan sits to sketch the flower she had found. We see a double inner door leading off this area.

It is in this area that we find the Food Machine.

It is a tall box-like affair with a sloping control panel with buttons and lights at chest level.

The foodstuff requested is created by inputting a code, using clock-like dials, operated as you would the combination lock of a safe. The Doctor gets these codes from a notebook. You then press a central button, lights flash and it emits a noise to let you know when your item is ready. He explains that flavours are made up of component parts, likening it to composing colours from a combination of other ones.

Ian and Barbara select bacon and eggs, and a small item resembling a white Mars Bar - other chocolate bars are available - emerges on a little tray from a slot on the front of the machine, just beneath the control panel.

With one bite you taste the bacon, and another the eggs. Ian jokes his bacon is a little salty, and the Doctor counters that it shouldn't be as it is English.

Presumably he acquired the taste during his five months in London.

The Doctor is determined to explore the city, but Ian and Barbara refuse to let him do this - even alone, as only he knows how to operate the TARDIS (so they assume that Susan can't on her own).

When Susan agrees with the teachers that they leave the planet, the Doctor sabotages the ship.

He ducks down behind the console whilst the others are distracted looking up at the scanner and tampers with a component inside its base.

The power builds up as normal, but the ship fails to dematerialise. 

Susan suggests checking the Fault Locator. This is built into the wall behind a glass frontage, and has a small rectangular viewing port at eye level.

When Susan looks through this we see a device resembling a seismograph, with a rolling strip of paper and a number of inked needles.

From this she identifies the problem as component K7 - which the Doctor knows, without looking it up, to be the fluid link (because he just tampered with it).

This small object comprises four circular discs with a metal rod running through the centre.

It should be filled with mercury, but one end of the rod has come loose and the mercury has run out. 

The Doctor reveals that he doesn't have a supply of this substance on board. This particular fault has never happened before - or so he claims. He will later confirm that there is no mercury on board, having searched through all his spares. Nor does he carry any other fluid links, as the one taken by the Daleks has to be retrieved from the city.

Prisoners in the Dalek city, someone has to return to the TARDIS to fetch the anti-radiation drugs left by the Thal Alydon. Only Susan is fit enough to do this but Ian insists on going, using her key. She explains that the lock has a defence mechanism. Inside are a number of barrels, 21 of them. If the key isn't inserted properly, the entire lock melts.

Ian can't simply keep trying. (Now that he is travelling with people other than just his granddaughter, and they may be with him for some time, the Doctor obviously replaces this set-up at the first opportunity).

The Doctor later uses Susan's key to sabotage the Dalek surveillance system, stating that he can make her a new one easily enough.

(Whilst he can make another key, he can't make a new fluid link it seems. This might be because he lacks the tools or materials, or maybe it's the skill - another possible pointer to the TARDIS not being of his own invention).

The TARDIS has some medical supplies, such as a remedy for headaches, but the Doctor states that there is nothing which might counter radiation sickness. They would need to travel to another planet and hope that a cure might be available there.

The Doctor takes some soil samples away with him, whilst Barbara gains a roll of Thal cloth and Susan one of their cloaks, of the style worn by their females.

The story ends with the Doctor at the console, with the TARDIS power levels building steadily after it has dematerialised from Skaro. The lights suddenly flare, and the room is plunged into darkness as everyone is thrown to the floor.

A word about the console: it has six control panels, but you can't operate it from any one of these on its own. You have to move around the console to operate it effectively, which suggests that it wasn't designed for a single pilot. This does not mean that it requires a crew of six, however - you wouldn't need someone just to operate a single panel - but it may have required at least one other person (a pilot and a navigator or co-pilot perhaps?).

Behind The Scenes:

It was originally intended that Ridley Scott - yes, that one - would design this story. However, when it became known he could only do the pre-filming at Ealing but be unavailable for the studio recordings, Verity Lambert asked that another designer be used for the sake of consistency.

This was Raymond P Cusick. In the end, the sixth episode would be designed by Jeremy Davies.

As the series progresses, designers will pick and choose which parts of the TARDIS set they will use depending on the needs of the director, and what is in the script.

A considerable part of the opening episode takes place inside the TARDIS, so the full size console room set is employed, including the partitioned off area which is to the right of the Fault Locator wall. This is where the food machine prop is also to be found.

The hexagonal floor plate which surrounded the console in the last story is no longer present.

The scene bridging the second and third episodes sees Susan return to the ship to collect the Thal drugs. Here we only see the console and a couple of walls, one of which contains the main doors. Beyond these is part of the forest set.

(It will become a convention of the series that the TARDIS doors will be to the left of the screen, but in the early days it can be seen to the rear of the console or, very occasionally, screen right).

The drugs are resting on a chair with a tasselled covering, just inside the doors. 

At the end of the story we see a shot of the console room from a high vantage point, and it can be seen that only one corner of the set has been used, along with the console itself. The scanner now appears to be positioned above the main doors, judging by where the Doctor and Ian are looking. The console is much closer to the doors.

If you look closely, you can actually see the rear of one of these walls at the back of the Dalek control room set.

A simple lighting effect was used to simulate an explosion, and the overhead lights were then dimmed.

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.

TARDIS Log: Origins

An Unearthly Child opens with a policeman checking the gates to a junkyard, run by I M Foreman, at 76 Totter's Lane. Satisfied they're locked, he moves on. However, as the camera moves in, the gates creak open and we approach a Police Public Call Box which sits incongruously amidst the bric-a-brac. It emits a strange hum...

20 years later, Douglas Camfield would criticise this opening sequence, claiming Waris Hussein was mistaken in doing it this way. He was arguing the logic of the scene. The gates are seen to be locked, so how then could they swing open? Who is opening them?

He was a director who was very much into realism, where every shot had to have a logical, narrative purpose - whereas Hussein was simply being practical as well as allowing for some artistic licence. It didn't matter about the gates being locked, or who might have opened them. He was setting up a mystery which had, at its heart, a Police Box, and this was the way he chose to introduce it.

No one person can claim credit for the TARDIS - either as a concept or for its final physical form. Some people can lay claim to certain aspects of it - such as designer Peter Brachacki, who was responsible for the iconic console room.

The story begins with Eric Maschwitz, head of light entertainment at the BBC. He commissioned a report on the feasibility of using science fiction as a basis for TV drama - a piece undertaken by Alice Frick and Donald Bull. Frick was later asked for a follow-up report, which she undertook with John Braybon. They concluded that two types of story merited further attention - those featuring telepaths, and those involving time travel, of which they favoured the latter as a wider range of writers might be interested.

The recommendations would only be put into practice with the arrival in January 1963 of Sydney Newman, as new Head of Drama. He was a keen follower of science fiction, and for ABC had been responsible for four family adventure serials involving space travel. The first was Target Luna, which was followed by the "Pathfinders" series - Pathfinders in Space, Pathfinders to Mars, and Pathfinders to Venus. All revolved around a family of space adventurers, children of a rocket scientist, who undertook interplanetary travels with adult companions. The final serial had also included a shady older man - Harcourt Brown, played by George Coulouris - who frequently placed the others in jeopardy in order to pursue his own scientific obsessions.

One of the first things he noted was a drop-off in viewers on a Saturday evening following the sports compendium Grandstand, before picking up again an hour later with Juke Box Jury. Various drama serials had been used to fill the slot, but Newman wanted a new family-friendly series, aimed especially at children, which might keep the Grandstand audience.

A meeting was held in March, attended by Newman, Frick and Braybon, along with Donald Wilson (Head of Serials) and staff writer Cecil Edwin Webber, known as "Bunny".

Ideas discussed included stories about telepaths and time travel, as the second report had suggested, but also ones involving flying saucers and computers. 

It was the time travel idea which Newman liked the most.

Webber was sent away to develop some character outlines, which included a youngster ("Need a kid to get into trouble") and a pair of young adults who could provide some potential romance, plus an older man with some "character twist". Newman then put together a memo which he passed on to Wilson outlaying the basic premise of the series, with the older man now a mysterious time traveller who was hundreds of years old.

Webber then began work on the opening story, provisionally titled "Nothing At The End Of The Lane", and he suggested that the time machine might be invisible - using electronic inlay techniques to show its entrance - as it was covered in some light resistant material. He also suggested that it disguise itself as an everyday item wherever it went. Another of his ideas was that one of the crew had to remain inside whilst the others went out to explore, in order to anchor it to its location.

Newman dismissed the invisibility notion as he wanted something tangible and visual.

The main character - "Dr Who" - would not be able to steer his ship due to senility, and would be constantly seeking components with which to make repairs.

The time machine itself couldn't be a flying saucer or rocket-like craft as this would be far too big to realise in studio, especially if only going to be seen briefly at the beginning or end of individual storylines. The idea of it disguising itself as an everyday object was agreed upon. It still had to accommodate four people comfortably inside, so the notion of having different dimensions within - bigger on the inside - followed. Objects considered were a Police Box and a workman's hut, and the former was accepted - outlined in May 1963 notes by Webber, before Anthony Coburn came along (who would later lay claim to the idea).

Having the time machine's outward appearance look the same all the time, rather than have it change for every landing site, allowed for a single visual identifier for the programme.

Rex Tucker was brought in to produce the new show, and he brought along former actor and now director Richard Martin to one of the early meetings. Martin came up with the idea that the time machine wasn't a fully physical space, but had some sort of psychological aspect - a mental barrier at its entrance. If you didn't believe in the space within, you simply walked into a normal Police Box. This suggestion wasn't taken up.

Never happy with the assignment, Tucker was allowed to step away from the project and was replaced by Verity Lambert. On her arrival in June she discovered that Webber's draft script - which would have seen the characters reduced to an inch in height and been trapped in a school science lab - had been dropped, and Coburn was now working on an alternative opener - "The Tribe of Gum".

In this, the character Suzanne (who will become Susan) tells her teachers that the time machine was called a Change and Dimensional Selector and Extender.

Despite the story later gaining the title of "100,000 BC", Coburn had it travel back 195,000 years for its encounter with the tribe.

Webber had previously suggested that the time machine and its owner originated in another galaxy in the year 5733, and new Story Editor David Whitaker retained this initially, as there was an idea that it could never travel to any point beyond that year - otherwise the Doctor and Susan would know their own futures.

A draft script from 8th July has the Doctor claim to be 300 years older than Ian, and the time machine responds to verbal commands, spoken by him in an alien language.

It is only in the version dated 12th July that the time machine has been given the name TARDIS - Time And Relative Dimension In Space.

Regarding the exterior, it has been said that an existing Police Box prop was going to be used for the TARDIS, one employed on Dixon of Dock Green, but this proved to be too big to fit into the lifts at Lime Grove Studios - so a smaller one was built specially.

The window surrounds are painted white, and the St John's Ambulance badge can be seen on the right hand door - indicating that the box held First Aid supplies.

On the left hand door is the information panel. Behind this sat the telephone, and the "Pull To Open" instruction refers to this panel, not the whole door.

The info panel and its surround were also white.

In the first version of An Unearthly Child, the Doctor opened the box by shining his pen torch into the lock. This was changed to an ordinary Yale-style key.

Police Public Call Boxes began life as hexagonal cast-iron structures, introduced in Glasgow in 1891. They were red in colour and had a gas lantern on the top. Anyone could use the telephone, which had a direct link to the nearest police control centre.

In 1912, Glasgow began replacing these with rectangular boxes, with an electric light fitting and a telephone which only police officers could now access.

Wooden versions followed in Sunderland in 1923, and in Newcastle in 1925, before spreading to other northern cities including Manchester and Sheffield.

The classic TARDIS version was designed by Gilbert Mackenzie Trench in 1929 and adopted by the Metropolitan Police.

Only one box survives in London, outside Earl's Court tube station, but several can still be seen in Glasgow - though not always painted blue. Some are employed as coffee kiosks.

Generally, only the doors of Metropolitan Police Boxes were wood, the main structure being concrete.

The Glasgow Police Boxes remained red, until a certain TV sci-fi show prompted the police to paint them blue in the 1960's...

As the date for production drew closer - the new series supposed to launch in September - Lambert grew increasingly irritated by the lack of development on the TARDIS interior design. This had been assigned to Brachacki, and in interviews she would claim that he had little interest in the work. It wasn't quite the case, as seen in origins drama An Adventure In Space And Time, that he simply threw it together on a whim from objects on his desk, but a lot of pressure did have to be put on him to come up with the final design. William Hartnell himself was keen to see "his" time machine.

As I've said, the result is iconic, but it isn't exactly as Brachacki had envisioned it, due to budget constraints. £500 had been allocated, and the cost of the TARDIS would actually cause the entire programme to be put at risk...

The first console room set measured 40 feet by 35 feet, taking up the majority of Lime Grove Studio D.

The six-sided central console was built by Shawcraft Models of Uxbridge, and each panel was removable. Brachacki intended for each panel to have handles for this purpose, and he also hoped that microphones could be installed inside these. 

The controls themselves were supposed to be specially moulded to fit the Doctor's hands, but instead various standard switches and buttons were used. The central column was 30 inches in diameter, made of perspex and fitted inside with lights supplied by a firm named Clark-Smith). The column rose and fell initially by use of a car foot-pump.

According to the designer, the column was supposed to rise when the TARDIS first took off, and would then rotate. The column would fall again only on landing. It was supposed to be a form of 3-D navigation system, from which the Doctor could see their location. It was never intended to keep going up and down.

The lights on the console were powered via an electrical cable, which can occasionally be glimpsed.

The studio floor was painted blue, and around the base of the console were set hexagonal metal plates.

Another hexagonal shape was suspended above - supposed to represent the power source.

This would quickly be discarded as it was unwieldy and interfered with the positioning of microphone booms.

The scanner was a TV monitor mounted on a frame which could be wheeled around. Brachacki intended that it should lower itself down from the ceiling when needed.

He wanted to use fibreglass for the walls, but this was too costly so they were made of wood, inset with PVC roundels. These were to have been translucent, and pulse with light when the ship was operated.

Two of the walls were photographic blow-ups - one of drilled holes to match the roundels and one of electronic components. The latter would be replaced for the broadcast version of the opening episode.

The designer had intended that the roundels could be removable to allow various camera angles to be achieved, but this was never taken up.

The doors, which caused so much trouble on the pilot episode, were mounted on a metal frame on another wooden wall. They were operated by stagehands and were difficult to balance, resulting in them swinging open or banging when being closed.

It was originally intended that the exterior would not be seen directly through these doors. They would lead to the reverse of the Police Box doors, held closed with a simple latch.

Walls, doors and console were all painted a pale green, which would appear white on screen.

The set was dressed with various items of furniture and furnishings, including high-backed and canvas-backed chairs, a brass clock, a tall candelabra affair, an eagle lectern, a bird cage, a sculptural group mounted on birds, and a low table. The suggestion was that this eclectic mix arose from the Doctor's travels - but he could equally have obtained them from the junkyard outside or from visits to London antique shops.

As the series commences, there is nothing yet to say that the TARDIS hasn't come directly to Totter's Lane from the Doctor's homeworld...

In terms of the soundscape, this was entirely the work of Brian Hodgson of the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop. Famously, his idea for the TARDIS dematerialisation effect was the notion of the "ripping of the fabric of time" - achieved by drawing his house key along the wires of an exposed piano frame, then slowing down and processing the resulting sound. He had used a similar process for the sound of a ship scraping against rocks on a radio production.

In all, Hodgson came up with 8 items for the TARDIS, under the collective title of "Dr Who - Beyond the Sun", which could act as library pieces for the series.

Next time, we'll look at the very first story, and what we learn of the TARDIS in story terms there...

Incoming: TARDIS Logs

Quite a few years ago now, I began a series of posts titled "TARDIS Travels" which petered out during Capaldi's tenure (no pun intended). I was never entirely happy with them to be honest, as they ended up as quick "went from A to B" posts.

Now that my story reviews have caught up with the series - and we're unlikely to see any new Doctor Who for a number of years - I'm going to revisit this idea.

Rather than a straight catalogue of journeys, however, I aim to go a little more in depth. As well as the journey itself, I'll be looking at where - and when - the TARDIS travels to, plus what new information we have gleaned about the ship on that particular journey. 

I'll also be looking at what might have been going on behind the scenes regarding the TARDIS as well.

The first post doesn't actually feature a journey. It all starts in a junkyard...

The Daleks in Colour: Revisited

The arrival of "The Daleks in Colour" on DVD and Blu-ray has afforded me the opportunity to take another look at it. I have only watched it once, on broadcast, and wrote my review on first impressions.

Last night, I watched it again, to see if my opinion had changed in any way...

First things first, the cover: 

There are websites which highlight terrible examples of Photoshop, and this could comfortably be added. It's poor. We simply have a couple of Daleks superimposed onto an image of the Doctor and companions surrounding the TARDIS console. The Daleks have their backs to us, and there seems to be a half-hearted attempt at perspective which doesn't work. 

No artistic merit whatsoever.

The colourisation:

Much has already been mentioned about Barbara's acid pink blouse. At no point do you ever lose sight of the fact that this wasn't made in colour, but has been artificially colourised.

At times I think they've gone overboard and used too much colour - especially with the Dalek city. This has led to an obvious lapse of logic. They've added a couple of POV shots (using the blue-tinted, calibrated Dalek-eye view of the new series). If the Daleks can't see colour, why on Skaro would their city be full of purples and golds? Colour for the sake of colour, with little or no subtilty.

There are colour photos from 1963/4 available, taken by Ray Cusick. He was making a programme to be broadcast in B&W, and had a much better colour-sense.

Other than this, the colour is fine. I love the forest and the views of the city.

CGI:

Which brings me to the CGI effects, which are mercifully few. I've no idea why they used a computerised city when it looks just like the excellent Shawcraft model. The TARDIS shots are poor. The dematerialisation at the end stands out badly, as we see that there are supposed to be Thals standing right next to it.

The edit:

A real contentious issue for many. Seven episodes condensed down to 75 minutes. Even the Peter Cushing movie lasted longer. This edit was designed to make the story fast paced and exciting, as the plan was to attract viewers who might not normally watch archive monochrome material - so we need to keep this in mind.

Sadly, this means that the new viewers are losing lots of lovely character moments, such as the TARDIS food machine sequence. It is irrelevant to the plot, so you can see why it went, but I feel sorry for the intended audience. You are missing so much.

A particular irritation is the need to repeat action every time someone refers back to it. 

When the captured time-travellers talk about the drugs they found outside the ship, we are shown this scene again. Likewise, when the death of Temmosus is talked about, we see it again. And when mention is made of Ian being shot, we see it again...

The implication is that the viewer has the attention span of a goldfish and can't remember what they saw 15 minutes ago. It's treating the viewer like an idiot.

Some of the intercutting is clumsy.

As originally broadcast, the Daleks could manage only a couple of still images of the Thal camp, which they can't even interpret very well, thinking an injured Thal might be Ian until they see him in the next picture. Here, the Daleks can see right into the Thal camp and get sound and moving pictures.

Which begs the question: if they can see and hear what's going on, why don't they know all about the plan of attack against them? The re-edit has created another logic lapse.

The new voices stand out, and not in a good way. David Graham's voice sounds its venerable age, and Briggs is far too recognisable.

The music:

My big bugbear. I've hear it again, and I still loath it. As I said in my original review, for someone who is supposed to be the guardian of the programme's audio legacy, Ayres has a cheek to even consider overwriting the work of Tristram Cary and Brian Hodgson. Style and tone are all over the place, dialogue is drowned out, and the music simply doesn't match the action a lot of the time.

The music accompanying the escape to the lift is stand-out excruciatingly awful. He's certainly no Murray Gold, that's for sure.

I've looked him up on-line, and he has no significant credits outside of Doctor Who projects. No films, no dramas, no sitcoms, no documentaries. I think we know why, and I'll leave it at that.

Value(less) Added Material:

There's a "Making of..." for the colourised version. To be honest, I can't be bothered seeing how they did what they did, so gave this a miss. It was covered in DWM anyway.

The second disc contains the original seven part story - and this actually makes me really rather angry.

I knew from the initial announcement that the original version was not going to be upscaled for Blu-ray, but I didn't think they'd simply use the old DVD version. And it is the old DVD version. It even has the old logo, branding and menu - including the "The Beginning" box-set intro. 

They've quite literally just taken the DVD and slapped a new picture on the disc.

A wee bit of a clean-up and new menu / branding - even just the "Whoniverse" - would have been nice. 

It's not as if we're likely to see The Collection - Season One box-set any time soon.

"The Daleks in Colour" has its pros and cons. As someone used to the Aaru movie, I have no issue with an alternative take on the story. It's "as well as" and not "instead of" the original B&W version, and that's the way to look at it. 

From comments I read back in November, parents reported their children really enjoying it - kids who might just want to view some more (just a pity it's a one-off - at least for now - so there's nothing else to show them to capitalise on this interest). If it helps create a next generation, all well and good.

My favourite part of the release? The colourised clips of other Hartnell episodes at the end - accompanied by decent music...

Happy 60th Birthday, Daleks

60 years ago today we got our very first glimpse of a Dalek, It was only the end of the plunger, menacing Barbara (wielded by future Doctor Who director Michael Ferguson). We had to wait another week before we got to see the full effect of what are now an iconic design (which has been meddled with a few times since - always unsuccessfully).

The BBC have released the covers for the Blu-ray and Steelbook versions of the colourised first story, due out 12th February.