Grab Bag Reviews: "The Aztecs"

Okay, I'm finally sitting down to work on this one.

And really, the delay has just been delay because it's not like this is a *bad* story. In fact, far from it....

"The Aztecs" was part of the first series but actually part of a kind of second wave of stories.

You see, while the BBC did go ahead and commission Doctor Who it was initially not approved for a full season run. The series original commission of episodes took it up to around the story "Marco Polo". As the show did prove popular, the BBC went ahead and announced to producer Verity Lambert that the Doctor Who team could continue on for a full season. As such, there was a slight scramble to hire writers to produce more scripts quickly to take the show to the end of the season.

John Lucarotti had written the script for "Marco Polo" and really impressed Lambert and the rest of the team. At the time of pitching the script for "Marco Polo" Lucarotti had also pitched a script idea for a story involving the ancient Aztecs. Recalling this pitch, Lambert told Lucarotti to move forward on the idea for that script to fill out the rest of the season.

There is also a somewhat commonly held belief that the costumes were not historically accurate in order to make sure they passed the censor board. This is not true -- the costume design team actually extensively researched Aztec clothing and replicated it very accurately.

And now on with the show....

The Plot: The TARDIS lands at a large, Aztec city and Barbara is quickly mistaken for a reincarnated high priest named Yetaxa -- favored of the gods. Unfortunately, the time traveling team is also cut off from the TARDIS, making them unable to leave until they can find a way back. Barbara sees this as an opportunity, believing that if she can rid the Aztecs of their rituals of human sacrifice then when the Spanish arrive they will not destroy the civilization. The Doctor warns her not to meddle but Barbara is insistent. Soon she finds herself embroiled in intrigues which threaten not only her own life but that of her friends as well!

My Take: It has been noted that, particularly here in the early days of the series, the historical stories tended to have a Shakespearean feel to them if not an actual Shakespearean tone and structure. That is really on display here as the actor playing the Aztec priest Tlotoxl goes into full-on Richard III mode. And it isn't just a viewer's interpretation, John Ringham, the actor in question, was more than upfront about it in interviews.

On the one hand, it makes for a delightfully villainous performance. On the other hand though it also occasionally makes for a performance made of canned ham. At one point Ringham, as Tlotoxl, actually turns and speaks directly into the camera thereby breaking the fourth wall by essentially speaking to the audience. No! No! No! You do not DO that!! Yes, it was a device used by Shakespeare and in Shakespeare it works. On television, however, it immediately reminds the viewer that they are watching a TV show. The cables on the suspension of disbelief bridge instantly snap. And as if that were not bad enough it's repeated in the opening recap of the next installment! Ack!!

Also, as a historian, I have a little problem with Barbara's assessment of the situation. Yes, I know the show was still at least paying lip service to the idea that the stories were supposed to educate children. And since it was aiming for children it didn't want to get too technical on them (although this was more a problem of the times -- the idea that kids needed to be spoon fed information. Nowadays we know we don't have to 'dumb things down' for them quite so much). Still, there is a metric crap ton of holes in Barbara's idea and as a supposed history teacher she really should have known better... And yes, I *am* going to divert here and discuss them. Go scroll down a bit if your eyes glaze over.

First, we'll give the show a pass on why a British high school history teacher would have "specialized" in Meso-American history. Hey, all us historians usually have a favorite field of history and sometimes it has nothing to do with where we live or our background but it has to be acknowledged that it *is* a little weird for Barbara to have this as a specialty.

Second, Barbara's assessment of the Aztec culture being destroyed by Spanish invaders simply because of the human sacrifice element of Aztec religion is simplistic in the extreme. Did the human sacrifice element contribute? Oh, yes, but Barbara's idea that eliminating that one element would save the Aztecs is just ignorant.

For one thing, the Aztec culture was already in decline when the Spanish arrived. There was corruption in high places. It happens. Given enough time if it hadn't been the Spanish the Aztec culture probably would have collapsed under it's own weight and evolved into something different from the rubble.

For another thing, the Spanish explorers/conquerors were there to bring back wealth for Spain. Gold and other precious metals, gems, etc. They were bound to destroy the Aztecs in the process of getting these items. It was sadly common for invaders to basically end up enslaving the local populace to get what they wanted. Again, all that follows was the times, this is *not* an attack on modern Spain, the Spanish people, or the Catholic church. History is ugly and there isn't a one of us whose ancestors didn't do something horrid at one point in time. Face up to it, deal with it, don't forget it, and move forward. That's what history is about.

And tied to that was the European ideas of superiority. No matter what the Aztecs were bound to be seen as "savages" by the Spanish and the process of "civilizing" them back then meant 'making their culture look like ours'. This, of course, destroyed the native culture in the process.

And finally (at least for this assessment where I hit just a few of the high points), at the time of the conquest Spain was a Catholic nation and they took as one of their duties an idea of spreading Catholicism as the one, true religion. As such, priests were dispatched to convert the native population. So in the context of this story, even if Barbara had managed to eliminate human sacrifice she could not have (and wisely did not try to) removed the Aztecs belief in their pantheon of gods. And no matter what, that belief system would have been targeted by the Spanish invaders as well and the stripping of it would have been another key in the destruction of the culture.

So, from a historical standpoint, Barbara gets a 'D' at least as a history teacher from me.


Okay, you can start reading the rest of the review now if you decided to skip over my historian's rant.

The rest of the story really is Barbara's story and, well, to be honest, I'm a little bit mixed about it.

On the one hand, it is an excellent showcase for actress Jacqueline Hill. That woman proves she was born to play royalty with her turn as Yetaxa. She pitches everything perfectly. She also gets a chance to show off Barbara's steel spine. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- Barbara is a badass. Not only does she verbally put the smackdown on Tlotoxl on more than one occasion, she also physically does so when she saves Ian's life by grabbing a knife and putting it to Tlotoxl's throat.

Let me repeat that. She saves *Ian's* life (that's right, traditional hero dude saved by the chick!) by grabbing the knife off the belt of an Aztec warrior and then holding it to Tlotoxl's throat like she means business. Not a single shake, not a single hesitation, she's ice cold throughout. YES!

On the other hand, however, Barbara comes off as both a bit too stubborn and emotional in her crusade and she is slightly condescended to when both the Doctor and Ian tell her she's wrong to try to change Aztec society and that she is also doomed to failure. So in that way there is a slight whiff of the 'overly emotional female who can't take good advice' trope. And I really hate that trope. Thankfully it's slight and doesn't ruin the rest of the story.

Then, of course, there is the Doctor's "romance". Fans of old have often disliked the merest hint of an idea that the Doctor may have had an actual romance with the older, learned, Cameca but for me, personally, I find it sweet. There are also indications that the Doctor did hold Cameca in some regard and he regretted very much breaking her heart. At the same time there is also no shame in the relationship for, despite Cameca being from a less advanced culture, she is still consistently treated with respect in the script and she is shown to be wise, experienced and insightful.

Really, the script is great on all counts in treating all the characters with a great amount of respect. Sure, Tlotoxl is a bit stereotypical and his motivations are a bit muddied but he is always treated as a genuine threat and never as a joke to be laughed off or discarded. The warrior Ixta who becomes Ian's nemesis is also shown to be a fast learner and a genuine antagonist as he takes Ian's lessons about unconventional fighting and the element of surprise and turns them on Ian himself. And in the end, the audience ends up feeling great remorse for Autloc -- the other priest and the one who accepts Barbara's message. In one way, Barbara succeeds with him in convincing him human sacrifice is wrong but in another way she fails because in doing this she causes the older man to lose not only his belief but also his faith in all his civilization. He gives away his worldly possessions and leaves to wander the wastelands in hopes of finding something to put his trust in. It's very nearly heartbreaking to see.

Kudos must also be raised to the costumers, prop designers, and set designers all. The costumes are exacting and beautiful and really add to the flavor of the story. Likewise the props -- the jewelry, weaponry, and pottery are also well researched and wonderfully executed. And the set designers certainly do a terrific job considering their limitations. At this time the series was still completely studio-bound and not only that but forced to film in one of the BBC's smallest sound stages. Despite this the set designers go all out in recreating an Aztec city. The fakey-ness of the background paintings is detectable today, yes, *but* modern television screens produce a higher resolution than older ones did and the original tape has been cleaned up to provide a clearer picture as well. Taking that into account the backgrounds are still very effective in the story.

Overall, (because I've already gone on too long) if you want to see one of the highlights of the First Doctor's era then this is the story to see. There is action and when there isn't action the drama keeps one on the edge of the seat. There are great performances by all of the regular cast but William Hartnell and Jacqueline Hill in particular shine here. Even where there is padding in this four parter it never really feels like padding. Arguably the best story of the show's first season.

Grab Bag Reviews: "The Daleks"

Ah-ha! Here we go then... the first appearance of the monsters which would come to define and symbolize Doctor Who. There is not a single incarnation of the Doctor who has not faced the Daleks at least once with the exception of the Eighth Doctor... unless you count the audio stories... but that's another story. Anyway... DALEKS!!!

It was still only 1963 and at the time of filming the first episode of the series hadn't even aired yet. Doctor Who, however, was already suffering from some of the problems with late scripts which would plague the show intermittently for years. As such, a script from a relative newcomer to writing for science fiction TV was pushed up to be the second serial of the series. The writer was Terry Nation.

Producer Verity Lambert was also taking a chance on Nation's script. The department head, and her boss, Sydney Newman, had made it clear from the start that he wanted "no bug-eyed monsters" on Doctor Who. Newman was well aware of the show's science fiction elements but he felt it would be detrimental to the program to include alien monsters. Lambert, however, was in need of a finished script to shoot and she also believed very strongly in Nation's story.

For his part, in later interviews Nation claimed that he wrote the script intending for it to educate children on the dangers of fascism. Nation had lived through WW II and was aware that the generation of children who would be watching the show would grow up only knowing the war though history books. As such he wanted an allegory to teach them the dangers of extreme viewpoints and to stand up against those views when they found them. Because of this, over the years, even more would be made of the ties between Nazism and the Daleks in later stories... particularly "Genesis of the Daleks".

Set designers, prop makers, and costumers also got their first crash course in Doctor Who sci-fi as they created the planet Skaro, the costumes for the humanoid Thals, the city of the Daleks and, of course, the Daleks themselves. It is a testament to their skill that, other than a little tweaking, the design has remained largely the same for over 47 years. And it should be noted that, although Nation gave some basic descriptions of the Daleks in his script it was the prop designer who truly designed the look of the Daleks.

When the first episode of the serial aired Sydney Newman was quite angry to find that his rule against "bug-eyed monsters" seemed to have been ignored. A few weeks later, however, when the audience figures came in and it was apparent that Daleks were the talk of the town he issued a written apology to Lambert and promised to allow her to make the decisions on what was best for the show.

The Daleks were a hit and they would go on to menace time and time again.

But is that first episode all it's cracked up to be? Or is it merely enshrined in viewer's hearts because it was the first?

The Plot: The Doctor, his granddaughter Susan and his still recently kidnapped Ian and Barbara land on a strange, alien planet. Disappointed at not being returned to Earth, Ian and Barbara still join in the exploration... for a time. When the Doctor wants to investigate a strange city, however, the others refuse and insist they leave the planet. The Doctor sabotages the TARDIS in order to get his way but upon arriving in the city the explorers are taken prisoner by the Daleks! The group also realizes that they are suffering from radiation poisoning but that there is another race of beings on the planet -- the Thals -- and that the Thals left them drugs to cure them back at the ship!

Susan retrieves the drugs and meets one of the Thals, who informs her that the Thals wish to make peace with the Daleks. Susan delivers this message back to the Daleks and the Daleks agree to peace... or so it seems. The time and space travelers soon learn it is all a trap for the Thals and they helped lure the Thals into it!

Upon escaping the Daleks the Doctor soon learns that a part vital to the TARDIS was left behind in the Dalek city. They must stage a raid to get it back but can they count on the help of the pacifistic Thals? Even if they get the help can the now primitive Thals stand a chance against the technically superior Daleks? And meanwhile, what plans are the Daleks hatching to remove the Thals from the face of the planet forever?

My Take: With this being a very early story in the series there is still a sense of the writers and actors getting their legs under them a bit. There are also some striking characterizations which would change over time and so viewers might find these interesting precursors for what would come.

"The Daleks" features a very different Doctor than the one we would become used to. Here the Doctor is a conniving [insert somewhat impolite term for a person born outside the bounds of marriage] as well as somewhat cold and uncaring towards his unwilling companions -- for example, at one point the Doctor is quite ready to go off and leave the missing Barbara without a single concern for her welfare. This aspect of the Doctor's personality would be changed with the very next story ("Edge of Destruction") but for "The Daleks" it is still in place. Of course it is interesting in that the Doctor's selfish actions put himself and Susan in danger and he is forced to admit to Ian and Barbara that he is at fault here and has no one to blame but himself -- a nice little moment of thaw for the cantankerous old coot and a hint of the changes to come.

Taking the first several serials as a whole -- from "An Unearthly Child" to "Marco Polo" viewers actually see a character arc for the Doctor. Not only is he self-centered, egotistical, and lacking empathy, he also lacks the impulse to help and interfere. Last year fans were treated to an all-new Doctor who proclaimed that bringing down the government was what he did but here we have a Doctor who declares that that the Thal's predicament isn't any of their affair and they're all just better off leaving. Of course, by the end, we see him actually kind of revelling in what he has done -- encouraging the Thals and promising to stop by and visit them at some point in the future to see how they are getting along. He warms considerably to the point where he becomes more recognizable as the Doctor.

Ian and Barbara also get the meatier character parts with this story. They are disheartened at not being brought back home immediately, they are fearful that they might not get back home at all, and they are increasingly adrift with nothing familiar to cling to except each other. Those scenes between the two actors have a ring of truth and a feeling of real emotion to them. Sadly, they are all too short and never really come up again. Jacqueline Hill's Barbara, however, gets a hinted romance with one of the Thals that is also tentative and rather sweet. The fact that the writers had to downplay the plot element because of the child target audience of the show actually works in its favor -- making it light instead of heavy-handed as most other emotional beats are here.

And therein lies one of the problems with the script -- Terry Nation goes rather heavy-handed on most of the elements. For example, it takes the "outsiders" of Ian, Barbara, Susan and the Doctor to teach the Thals to stand up for themselves -- gotta love that whiff of old-fashioned colonial attitude there. And when the Thals state that they would simply retreat if the Daleks attacked Ian and Barbara are rather horrified by the idea... this of course being a clumsy and thinly veiled attack on former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who went down in infamy for taking an appeasement approach to Nazi Germany. Viewers are also hammered with the idea that the Daleks hate the Thals for no good reason -- merely a dislike of "the Other" -- which is, again, an overly simplistic view of the practices of Nazi Germany. Although Nation was trying to put forth the dangers of radical fascism and the need to oppose them to children the message is sent home with rather more force than is required even for kids to get the idea.

There is one scene which, despite being as heavy handed as the rest, which still manages to soar with some lovely moral ambiguity and that is the scene in which the time travelers discuss getting the Thals to help them. Ian and Susan take the ground that it isn't right to ask the Thals to die for them and the Doctor and (surprisingly) Barbara take a more practical view that if they don't ask the Thals for help them they are condemning themselves to die or at the very least to being stranded on the planet for the rest of their lives. There is actually a good moral discussion here as it is pointed out that Ian and the Doctor have a moral duty to those in their charge but at the same time they also have a moral duty to not try to coerce the Thals into giving up their lives for something that will not benefit them.

For their part, the actors playing the Thals also get their meatiest moments around this discussion. There is something that actually feels rather right in their clinging to pacifism and even when they decide to go to war they do so with caution and deliberation rather than anger or vengeance.

It really is a bit of a shame, though, that almost all of the really interesting stuff -- the characterizations, fascinating dialogue, and moral discussions all come right smack in the middle of the serial... and most of the rest of the serial is like watching someone play a video game.

No, seriously, I realized it as I was watching the last two parts of the serial -- the whole thing seems like the levels of a video game... only with some really boring dialogue. And therein lies the second and third problems with this story -- it's formulaic and padded. Even with only one serial in existence before this one a pattern is starting to emerge -- our heroes get captured, our heroes escape, our heroes have to return to their captors, our heroes have to solve a problem or put a wrong right then they can leave. The trek to the Dalek city that Ian, Barbara and the Thals have to make leading up to the climax of this story really adds nothing to the overall tale. It provides some action/adventure bits but aside from that it doesn't really give us anything new about the Thals or about Ian and Barbara or even the Doctor and Susan. "The Daleks" ended up stretching for seven episodes and the padding quite frankly shows. Entire episodes where our heroes are stuck in a Dalek cell doing little but rehashing the stuff we already know or have already been shown (usually the rule is "show don't tell" or "tell don't show" the rule is never "tell and show"), entire episodes that don't really add anything to the overall story, etc. "The Daleks" probably could have been a really excellent four part story, maybe five parts but at seven parts it overstays it's welcome by far.

There are some other things which help offset the plotting problems. For one, while some of the special effects are not the best in the world the set designers really did a good job with the Dalek city. The low, asymmetrical doorways tell viewers immediately that the inhabitants of this city are not human in shape. They also lead to a palpable feeling of claustrophobia -- a sense that our heroes are trapped even before they really end up trapped. There is also some nice model work and the costumes for the Thals seem nicely alien. And the Daleks. Ah yes, the Daleks. Now, after the passage of all this time, it's rather impossible to imagine them looking or sounding any other way, really. For the time period, however, the design was quite revolutionary and looked like nothing else out there... and probably inspired many a mock Dalek battle at the dinner table using salt and pepper shakers.

Overall, while "The Daleks" definitely holds a place in Who history it suffers from the passage of time and too much padding. Still, there are some really great moments here and it is interesting to see the origins of the show's most iconic monsters. I'd say definitely give this one a watch... but keep the remote control handy to fast forward through the boring parts.

Happy Anniversary "Doctor Who"!

47 years ago today Doctor Who debuted on television. 47 years and eleven Doctors -- the longest running sci-fi TV show ever. And it all started in 1963.

So, to commemorate, I thought I'd break the "Doctor Who Grab Bag" tradition and just review the very first episode -- "An Unearthly Child".

I'm not going to go into too much background on how the show got up an running -- it's actually a pretty long and complicated tale. Needless to say, Doctor Who didn't just spring from some writer's head, fully formed like Athena. It's also a very interesting story which gives a peek behind the curtain at how shows are brought to TV.

Second of all, there are now two different versions of "An Unearthly Child". For decades the version which was broadcast on TV was the only one people knew. In more recent years the original 'pilot' episode has been found and is available on DVD with the first serial as an extra. The pilot is slightly different -- some of the dialogue is different and some of the pacing is different but the story itself is largely the same. The pilot was produced to show to the bigwigs at the BBC to get the series finalized. The BBC asked for some changes before broadcast and so there were some script tweaks, the whole episode was actually re-shot (because editing at that time was practically non-existent so they couldn't just cut scenes or reshoot one scene and then drop it in to replace a previous scene.

For the purposes of this review I'm looking at the broadcast version rather than the pilot version.

Also, there is some argument among Who fans about this story. Some insist that "An Unearthly Child" is a story unto itself even though it leads directly into the first serial. Some say that it is merely the first installment of the larger first serial. Again, for the purposes of this review I'm treating it as a separate episode.

And now, let us meet the Doctor for the very first time!

The Plot: School teachers Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton find something strange about one of their students -- Susan Foreman. 15 year-old Susan is a curious mix of genius intellect and ignorance and she seems very much a stranger in a strange land despite the fact that she claims to be a native. Trying to solve the puzzle, Ian and Barbara follow Susan home one night to confront her about the dichotomies in her life. There they find Susan's mysterious grandfather and an even bigger mystery in who and what Susan and her grandfather are. The two teachers are about to embark on a journey of a lifetime....

My Take: It has to be said that the story suffers a bit from being studio bound. Of course most things were in those days but here there are times when you can hear the "roominess" of the sound quality and where things just look too much like a sound stage. On the other hand, though, in order to hide that sound staginess the set dressers added a lot of shadows, darkness and fog which add to the atmosphere and really give the story a creepy edge and a sense that anything can happen. The setting puts one in mind of Gothic horror rather than sci-fi and that helps make the sudden reveal of the interior of the TARDIS so surprising. We go from darkness and shadows to bright white light and gleaming chrome. It's very effective.

Modern viewers will likely find the pacing very slow. It's kind of a talky story in which everyone stands around discussing things rather than doing. It is only in the last few minutes in which everything really takes off. Some of the dialogue is a bit repetitious but there at the end everything really starts to take off. Ian and Barbara have gone from the ordinariness of their classrooms and students into another world -- one which they cannot comprehend and so they try to make up stories to convince themselves they are not seeing what they really are.

The performances, though, are pretty top notch. Again, modern viewers will like find Carol Ann Ford as Susan overplaying her part. In truth, she's a little better in the pilot version of the story. Jacqueline Hill and William Russell, however, are fine and natural as Ian and Barbara. There is also an instant chemistry -- an easy rapport between the actors -- which really sells the idea that Ian and Barbara are long-time colleagues and friends.

The biggest difference people are likely to see in in William Hartnell. Most people are used to seeing his First Doctor in his more 'grandfatherly' mode. Charming, slightly befuddled at times, and warm. Here they are introduced to a cagey old man who is arrogant and dismissive. He's actually not a very nice person and that is especially borne out by the fact that he outright kidnaps Ian and Barbara to keep them from revealing what they have seen. No, it would be several more episodes before Hartnell softened the performance.

It's also interesting to see how much is set here. The TARDIS interior would change slightly over the years but the bulk of it would retain the white color scheme and the large roundels on the walls up until the series relaunched in 2005. There is also the first appearance of the familiar dematerialization sound which is still a part of the series.

Overall, though... Unless you are a Doctor Who fan who is interested in seeing how it all started this may not be the story for you. It's a great story, it's brilliant in it's own way, but it lacks a lot of punch. In all actuality, the pilot version of the story is a bit better with some better dialogue, better explanations and a bit more moodiness. But if you have the tolerance for a slower pace and more dialogue heavy scenes "An Unearthly Child" is worth half and hour of your time. The dialogue works and none of it is clunky or stupid and, of course, the last few minutes of the story are really hard-hitting and dramatic.

It's where everything began and all of the stuff we've come to expect -- all of the roots of the show are right here for everyone to see and get re-acquainted with.

Grab Bag Reviews: "The Edge of Destruction"

Yes, it's another First Doctor story. No, I honestly don't plan these things -- it really is random.

In the early days of the series story titles were a lot more fluid. For example, the story "10,000 BC" was also known as "The Tribe of Gum" and this story, officially put on the DVD as "The Edge of Destruction" is also sometimes known as "Inside the Spaceship".

That clarified, here are a few other things to know about the story before we dive in... Doctor Who was very nearly ended before it began. Officials at the BBC worried about the expense of the show and nearly pulled the plug early. Luckily several people went to bat for the show and managed to convince the powers that be to give it a season run of 13 episodes.

What this meant, however, was that the series didn't have enough scripts at the ready quite to fill the 13 episode quota. It was decided to pen a quick, two-part script and stick it in between "The Daleks" and the lush, costume historical "Marco Polo". At the same time there were fears that the Doctor's rather abrasive and antagonistic personality might be frightening or off-putting to children and the two-parter was seen as the perfect place to start softening the Doctor's personality.

With this story needing to be completed fast and cheaply it was also decided to set the entire thing on the existing TARDIS set -- putting further constraints on the writer. The result of all of these requirements thrown into the story yields something that is... well... more than a little odd to be honest....

The Plot: Leaving Skaro the TARDIS suddenly lurches and there is a bright flash of explosion! Some time later the time travelers slowly regain consciousness but seem to be suffering from partial amnesia. The Doctor is injured but soon begins to recover with the help of Susan and Barbara but there is more going on -- the TARDIS is acting up, strange things keep happening, and the Doctor and Susan seem to be suffering from a great mistrust of Ian and Barbara.

As more and more things start going wrong Ian and Barbara wonder if there isn't something on the ship with them but the Doctor has found a more Earthly source to blame... Ian and Barbara! The Doctor announces he intends to put them off the ship but the crew may not even live that long as they race towards doom. Their only hope for salvation may lie unexpectedly with Barbara!

My Take: Remember when I said that "The Web Planet" was like 1960's experimental theatre? Well this is too. The story is just... it's weird. Plain and simple, it's weird. There are parts of it that come off well and hang together nicely and there are parts that just make no sense no matter how much you think about them. Sadly, the parts that make no sense make up the bulk of things.

There is no clear explanation of why the group had selective memory loss, no explanation for why Susan had a hissy fit with a pair of scissors, and the one thing we do get an explanation for -- the signals the TARDIS is sending -- makes no real sense. It just leaves the viewers quite frankly bewildered.

On the flip side, the introduction of the idea that something could be loose in the TARDIS and might even be possessing one of the group is nice and creepy -- and plausible as well for as long as it lasts. The Doctor's paranoia and suspicion by being unfounded, actually increase the tension as viewers begin to believe that the old man truly is insane.

And then there is the acting. Without a guest cast it falls all on the main cast and, sadly, there is a LOT of overacting done here. No one escapes from it but Ford may be one of the more overblown examples of it. Once upon a time this might have worked for the young audiences of the 1960's but modern audiences are likely to be too busy giggling.

"The Edge of Destruction" is not without some bright moments though. Jacqueline Hill's turn as Barbara has some great moments -- including one where she reads the Doctor the riot act and proves just how formidable a woman she can be.

Hartnell's performance as the Doctor is a bit overblown, yes, but there are also moments where he exudes menace and madness but later Hartnell makes the Doctor's change of attitude believable -- a humbled, contrite figure. One of my favorite moments comes when the Doctor believes he can do nothing to save them and quietly asks Ian if the young man will face death with him. It is nicely played -- quiet but with a sense of weight instead of over the top.

I also have to give credit to writer and production team for deciding to actually give viewers a story which changes the Doctor rather than just abruptly altering his personality without change. It also shows their thoughtfulness in that they do not make things easy on the Doctor -- while Ian lets him off the hook lightly he has to humble himself and apologize profusely to Barbara.

This story also marks the first point where the TARDIS is portrayed as semi-sentient. It will probably interest fans to see that the Doctor has never considered this possibility before and it is Barbara who surmises that the TARDIS is trying to communicate with them.

In the end, though, the positives about the story just can't overcome the negatives. "The Edge of Destruction" will probably only prove popular with those who are completists, curious, and/or fans of William Hartnell.