The third story of Doctor Who ever made, the Edge of Destruction is one of the most bizarre and surreal stories produced during the Hartnell era, and pales into insignificance compared to the adventures surrounding it (The Daleks and Marco Polo), however one should be more forgiving of it’s shortcomings, considering that it was made with virtually no budget and was an rushed script by season one story editor David Whitaker. It also delves into the fear and mistrust emanating between the alien Doctor and his granddaughter Susan, and the human school teachers Ian and Barbara, and as such it does add some much needed character development and exposition, as well as proving that the Doctor is an hero with faults, and that he is not always right.

Having said that, the plot for Edge of Destruction is shallow and superfluous and features some incredibly poor acting from the cast (main offender being Carole Ann Ford as Susan). 

There are still many things from the plot to me, that doesn't make sense to me, such as the short term memory loss that occurs at the start of the serial, to why an intelligent rational person such as the Doctor could honestly accuse Ian and Barbara of sabotaging the TARDIS without any real tangible shred of evidence ?

It could be argued that the only villain in this serial is the Doctor, he is extremely rude and arrogant to his travelling companions on Earth (in a similar vein to the 6th Doctor to Peri in Twin Dilemma), at one point threatening to eject them out from the TARDIS, and drugging them with sleeping tablets. Susan has some incredibly inexplicable moments, such as the infamous scene with the scissors in episode one. And Ian, normally such an stoic and reliable figure, is prone fits of irrationality. About the only character who remains consistent is Barbara, except for that scene with the melting clock (which again isn't satisfactorily explained) which causes her to go into uncharacteristic hysterics)

The main reason this story fails, is because of the ludicrous explanation at the conclusion, the fast return switch being stuck, is an cop out, and frankly still doesn't explain why the characters (and the TARDIS for that matter) have acted so indifferently throughout this short saga. It would have been a far better resolution to this story if there was indeed an invisible alien presence in the TARDIS, and that the four crew members worked together to flush the entity out of the TARDIS. 

The story only serves to alienate the audience away from the main hero (the Doctor) whose brusque and unfair treatment of his companions is unsettling, although it is perhaps redeemed in the ending, where it’s nice to see the likeable Ian Chesterton being so forgiving of the old time traveler, for all his eccentric ways, and showing the depth of Barbara’s hurt and anger at the Doctor’s earlier behavior was well displayed by Jacqueline Hill, and it is a nice moment when the Doctor finally manages to mumble his way uncomfortably to an apology, and the coldness of Barbara melting in the light of the Doctor’s sincerity. 

At the end of the day though, this serial can only be adjudged as the only real weak link in an otherwise excellent debut season of Doctor Who.

Regrettably, the biggest highlight of Edge of Destruction, comes at the end of the serial with the sole surviving footage of Marco Polo as the cliff hangar to Roof of the World.

"Frontier in Space" is a high point from my favorite era of the show. While I adore the UNIT scenario, it is wonderful that the Third Doctor’s exile to Earth ended, freeing him to have adventures such as this. This story is far from perfect, but accentuates the strengths of the Time Lord’s third incarnation and casts some interesting light on this entire period in the show’s history.

Doctor Who didn’t attempt a sprawling space opera that often (only "The Dalek Master Plan" leaps to mind). There are many stories set in the future or on board space ships, but few serials present such an epic canvas which the characters are seen to cross: no "star map" of the Earth/Draconian Empires has ever been published by merchandisers, but none is needed: the script, dialogue, and production provide just enough for the viewer to visualize the rest of the landscape in the mind’s eye. Yes, there are several instances of obvious padding but even some of the repetitive escape/capture/escape/recapture sequences lend a feeling of a story happening on a vast scale.

Malcolm Hulke’s script is quite good. There are occasional moments of embarrassing dialogue (The Doctor referring to Jo as a "perishing panda" and his anecdote concerning mind probes are best forgotten; as are, indeed, the very cliche of "mind probes"), but these are rare gaffes. Far better are the sequences on the lunar penal colony (The scenes between the Doctor and the other prisoners there are full of great character moments, and the Doctor’s exchange with Cross is very memorable. "Doctor: (after Cross confiscates another prisoner’s chocolate bar): That’s stealing, you know. Cross: That’s what I’m in for ... Got a troublemaker, have we? Doctor: That’s what I’m in for." In fact, watching this serial now, it is interesting to note how it anticipates the opening episodes of Terry Nation’s Blake’s 7 in many ways.

The Draconians are a well-realized alien race: the scenes in their embassy on Earth and their home world suggest a well-thought out society, with plenty of room for further exploration. This, coupled with the excellent costume design, makes one wonder why they never featured in Doctor Who again. The Master is strangely comical in this outing: reading H.G. Wells and mocking everyone from the Doctor to the Daleks with equal scorn. It’s well played by Roger Delgado but perhaps the Master could have been written in a slightly more sinister vein. This is a minor complaint, however, and Delgado’s swan song is very entertaining, nonetheless.

The Doctor is fascinating here; this incarnation is justifiably linked to UNIT in the minds of so many people, but it is always interesting to see him operating without the organization to fall back on. It is easy to forget that, whereas UNIT depends upon the Doctor, in the UNIT stories the Doctor himself also depends on UNIT for support and/or rescue. Without them, he and Jo are refreshingly on their own, depending upon their wits and whatever allies they can find to escape and win another day. Pertwee’s Doctor is not only the stylish moral crusader, but one of the most physically active incarnations of the character, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with Earth soldiers, Draconians, and the Master, undertaking several space walks to repair and or escape from assorted space vessels, and so on throughout the tale. Storylines are obviously tailored for whatever Doctor is incumbent at the time, but it is interesting to ponder how well Doctors would have fare if placed in some of their counterpart’s serials.

As for Jo Grant... Hmmm. I am partial to Liz Shaw, myself, but Jo doesn’t come off too badly in this story. She resists the Master’s hypnotic effects and diverts attention from one of the Doctor’s escape plans (for a while, at least), proving herself far more capable than I have considered her in the past. In Episode One, she even deduces that the Daleks might be in command of the Ogrons, only to be shot down by the Doctor’s contention that Ogrons have many employers. All right, the Master was guiding the Ogrons, but the Daleks were ultimately involved as well! Perhaps it’s time for me to re-evaluate Jo Grant?

Perhaps the only disappointing feature for me is the final sequence. It provides the cliffhanger lead-in to "Planet of the Daleks" well enough, but, in a piece of poor (one might even say bizarre) editing, the Master simply disappears! He shoots the Doctor one moment, and then the Ogrons flee, leaving Jo to help the wounded Doctor into the TARDIS. In an eyeblink, the Master is nowhere to be seen! Where did he go, and why? This always puzzled me, and, coming right at the end of the story, it closes out the tale on a slightly unsatisfactory note. Nevertheless, director Paul Bernard does a fine job otherwise, and "Frontier In Space" remains, for me, one of the greatest successes of the Pertwee era.

The Ribos Operation was the opening story of the sixteenth season and saw very much a final break in style and tone with the previous Tom Baker years. There has been plenty of comment about the humorous style of the latter Baker years, most of it misplaced. The humour here is as subtle and as clever as the gothic content of the Hinchcliffe years. The addition of the humour works. Season 16 as a whole works as does, for that matter, season 17.

The season was given a running theme, a story arc, which has since been replicated but never equalled. Namely the search for the Key To Time. 

The main drivers for this story are the relationships between the six main characters. Firstly there is the Graff Vynda-K and his trusty sidekick, Sholakh. These are two battle hardened veterans. From the looks of Sholakh he spent all the battles in the front line and from the looks of the Graff he spent those battles as far removed from the front line as Melchett in Blackadder Goes Forth. The Graff is a man who is bitter and has been deposed, he is driven by revenge and the desire to reclaim the Levithian crown. Sholakh, being a career soldier knows little else. His loyalty is wholehearted to the Graff. Theirs is a relationship borne in adversity. 

Another relationship borne in adversity, albeit of a different kind, is that of Garron and Unstoffe. Garron is played with a larger than life panache by veteran screen actor Iain Cuthbertson, best remembered by me in the wonderful Children of the Stones. His put upon sidekick is played by Nigel Plaskitt and actor whose two main claims to fame are being the voice of a hare on a childrens TV show and being "Malcolm" in the Vicks adverts for blocked noses in the seventies. Chosen career criminals, and portrayed as lovable rogues (Gawd bless em, they never armed anyone apart from their own) they have gone from planet to planet conning people out of their hard earned (or otherwise) goods and money. Constantly with an eye over their shoulder for the Police being on the run has forged a bond between them although I doubt either trusts each other. 

The final key relationship is the Doctor and Romana. Romana is a very different companion to any we have seen before. An equal to the Doctor, not in awe of him and very very aloof. A Time Lady version of Margot from the Good Life with The Doctor playing Tom to her Margot. 

Romana will lose, as the series evolves, she lost her aloof edge as she realised what was out there in the big old universe. However in this story Romana is at her most superior and there is some sparkling dialogue between her and the Doctor throughout the story. The Doctors annoyance at her putting a hole in the console to fit the tracer was wonderful, as was her smug superiority at the Doctor getting caught in one of the nets on the outskirts of the city.

In fact the dialogue is the best thing about this whole story. It fairly sparkles. Next to the dialogue is the superb characterisation of the main characters. The characterisation, and the motivation, of the characters is very well defined.

So the basic premise of the story, Garron and Unstoffe are trying to sell the planet Ribos to the Graff Vynda-K. They plant some documents to make it look like there are valuable mineral reserves on Ribos. The Doctor and Romana turn up and throw a spanner in the works. The story keeps going at a fairly reasonable pace, there are some interesting natives especially the seeker and, of course, Binro the Heretic played by Timothy Bateson, a man who has made his name in sitcoms as "middle class neighbour" or "Bank Manager" gives a truly sympathetic performance as a man who thinks the world is not flat and the planet revolves around its own sun in contravention of the thinking of the day. The interchanges between him and Unstoffe, hiding in the Catacombs, where Unstoffe reveals to him that he is right all along and one day people on Ribos will know he was right were truly moving. Worth a life !

Thank You Robert Holmes, for yet another superb story.

This story is rather uneven. On the one hand are some rather odd acting moments, e.g. Ian’s false “strangulation” gestures and Susan’s very moody stares, but on the other the audience sees some great confrontations, particularly between Barbara and the Doctor near the end of episode one. The Doctor’s verbal attack is strong enough to make the audience fully support Barbara’s reaction and she stands up for herself wonderfully. Hartnell also has his best episode yet in The Brink of Disaster – he transforms from a hostile accuser to an apologising kind man who has learnt something very important. His flustered inability to apologise to Ian is great to watch, as is his decent apology to Barbara at the end. No other episode in the history of the series ever had the Doctor learn so much about friendship and himself.

All of this drama is enacted within the TARDIS and involves no one else, giving us time to see more of the TARDIS interior and the dynamic of the crew. I feel the direction isn't quite good enough to make the audience believe there is an intruder aboard, and the initial lapse of memory results in some odd moments between Ian and Barbara at the beginning. Susan’s behaviour is particularly worrying – she certainly looks possessed but when the cause of the crisis is revealed, this is shown to be false, so her violent scissor attack was based on paranoia, fear and hysteria rather than possession. Freud would probably have liked to ask her some questions after that one. 

The story’s main boost in my opinion is not the Fast Return switch problem but Hartnell’s performance. He is suspicious, worries, cares, bullies, learns, speculates and apologises all in a few scenes in these episodes. When he fails to bully Barbara he offers the crew drinks, his explicit intention to calm everyone down hiding his real intention of forcing them to sleep so he can solve the mystery himself. The scene where he checks Ian and Barbara, chuckling to himself, is wonderful, for he is childishly enjoying himself. The next episode forces him to admit he needs the help of others to solve the problem (a nice touch for from Pertwee onwards he becomes so clever and invulnerable that he rarely needs anyone to help him). However his potential to commit murder is raised again (not seen since the Za stone incident) but this time it’s worse for he is going to force two acquaintances out of his TARDIS who have previously saved his life and are the victims of his prejudiced false conclusions of events he has shown he doesn't understand. This act makes his desire to ask Barbara to forgive him at the end more touching – not only has he learnt an important lesson about himself, he needs forgiveness to move on. His line “You still haven’t forgiven me have you?” is very poignant and when Barbara does forgive him the audience knows this crew is now much stronger and warmer than it has ever been before. It is a significant development and a sign of David Whitaker’s writing skills as well as the acting of the regular cast. 

The stock music adds to the drama very well, but I associate it more strongly with The Moonbase and kept thinking of that story when I heard it. It makes the “mystery” stranger. The cause of the problem is almost incidental to the suspicions it has raised, but the final moments when the Doctor fixes the spring have sufficient drama to make us urge him to hurry up before they’re all annihilated. The final moments are nice to see – the tension has gone once the Doctor is forgiven and they are all looking forward to exploring their next destination. The audience will see a kinder Doctor from now on, though his complex fascinating nature will still remain…

Can someone please explain to me WHY 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' has a poor reputation?

Granted, the dinosaurs fail miserably in 2004. When we are used to the living breathing cgi of Jurassic Park or the Star Wars prequels the hand puppets of 1974 fall by the wayside. But how else in this time before pixel orientated SFX were they mean't to realise them? I remember the seventies quite clearly and their ambitions were always high. There were hand puppets in 'The Land that Time Forgot' and stop motion monsters in the 'Sinbad' films but such things were way above Doctor Who's budget. A state funded television channel that had always prided itself on its prudence isn't going to go splashing money around for stop motion photography - even if it did have the luxury of time. To be frank this was a childrens show which ran for almost six months a year. Its shooting schedule was tight and it had to turn out a good story each week - and in this 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' succeeds admirably.

'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' is good. Damn good.

All the anachronisms of the Pertwee era are here - the Unit family, the earthbound threat, the Barry Letts preachiness. But it is held together by a superb script by Malcolm Hulke that is rich in characterisation, plot and surprises. When the novelty of the dinosaurs wears off then the story takes another turn that catches the audience by surprise. And all is held together by the tight script-editing of Terence Dicks. Not a scene is wasted, not a piece of dialogue is superfluous. Its a tight exciting piece of television take actually builds to an effective climax. And that in itself is a rare thing in the WHO cannon.

And the dinosaurs? To be frank they are not as effective, and certainly not as scary as the Drashigs in the fabulous 'Carnival of Monsters' and aren't really as well realised. The thing is the canvas was probably a bit too ambitious for such a production so 95% of the adventure is drama with the UNIT regulars. But they have too appear and when they do the entire thing has the feel of a comic strip or B-Movie. I expected little bubbles to appear out of Pertwee's mouth saying " A triceratops! Just keep it busy Brigadier while I finish doing this!" OK, the Tyrannosaurus Rex looks like a rubber doll, the kind you can win at a fairground and the fight with the Brontosaurus in front of Moorgate tube was unbelievable (I shall never look at that station in the same way ever again). The pterodactyl was as scary as the mop the Doctor used to fight it off. Only the Stegosaurus and possibly the Triceratops emerge with any credibility.

And yet it all seems eerily possible. Due to superb acting and directing the premise of giant sauropods roaming all over central London (surely the most hackneyed B-movie plot ever devised) it all actually works. And this is because, in short, the dinosaurs are superfluous. The adventure could have been called 'Invasion of the Mongol Horsemen' or 'Invasion of the Hairy Vikings' as the story is really about idealistic people endangering the rest of the population by scaring the bejesus out of them so they can formulate their plans. But I suppose the title 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' looked better in the Radio Times. The scale is bigger then a few dinosaurs - the whole of human history is in jeopardy. And that is what is so good about this adventure, which is rapidly moving up the scale to become one of my favourite Pertwees, that there are layer upon layer of story here. There is stuff here which is incredibly adult - idealism, ecology, self-deception, the ends not justifying the means. One of the most chilling threads was the removal of 'disruptive influences' and the measures used to ensure cohesity amongst a group.

Three people should share the credit - Malcolm Hulke the scriptwriter, Barry Letts the producer and director Paddy Russell. First of all Hulke comes up with a reason for their being dinosaurs roaming around Oxford Circus. And from this he builds a very interesting story. The villains aren't villains, at least in their own minds. They think they are doing great good returning mankind to a simpler less polluted age. Mankind has destroyed the planet and they want it returned to a more pristine time where their guiding hand will ensure the abuse never happens again. To them, they are doing great good. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Grafted onto this is almost a 'cold-war' type story of cross and double cross where it becomes apparent that anyone left inside the central zone is working for the idealists. And then we have the big shocker at the end of episode three where the audience is just as stunned as Sarah. A spaceship! She's been on a space ship for three months! With the stroke of a pen Hulke turns the story upside down in one of the best story twists of the entire series. Watching this part again I couldn't help thinking of 'Capricorn One', a Hollywood film where they fake the moon landings and the astronauts eventually twig and rebel. 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' predates this by about five years.

Producer Barry Letts knows exactly how to create such a story. Going from his DVD commentaries Mr Letts winces along with the rest of us watching subpar effects so it would be interesting to know his opinion on the dinosaurs thirty years on. The production company at Pinewood certainly let him down in that respect. But on the whole the production is top-notch. The first episode is incredibly atmospheric. Certainly it benefits from being in black and white, and the whole episode has something of sixties WHO about it. But director Paddy Russell certainly evokes a deserted and abandoned London with ease. The audience shares the disquiet of the Doctor and Sarah as they roam around trying to find out what has happened. Their arrest as looters works wonderfully and Pertwee pulling his face funny faces as their mugshots are taken was very funny. But it is evoking atmosphere and getting good performances from the cast that Russell excels. There is not a duff performance amongst them.

The three "villains" are well handled. Instead of the usual ranting megalomaniac with have a couple of faceless bureaucrats who want to change the world. Each one is well-drawn, Whitaker is the scientist who has finally cracked the secret of time travel and thinks he is using it for something good. John Bennett, a long way from his sympathetic portrayal of Chang in the 'The Talons of Weng Chiang' plays General Finch. Finch is played so unsympathetically by Bennett that if Finch were one of the good guys we still wouldn't like him. And then there is Grover, the government minister who is behind all of it. Politicians always claim they go into politics wanting the change the world - well, Grover does, back hundreds of years in fact. It is a very good performance and for the first three episodes we like him immensely, such a kindly gentleman - his scenes helping Sarah in his office, making the tea, are very gently done lulling the audience into a false sense of security - then WHAM! He betrays her! Noel Johnson brings the right kind of gentle charisma to the role. I've seen him play government ministers before, I'm sure that was him in the pre titles of 'For Your Eyes Only' as First Sea Lord.

And Captain Mike Yates? His betrayal is one of the best things in the adventure. The character was pretty faceless before, just a public school ladder-climber. We learn't more about the real Mike Yates then we have over the two/three years he has been with us. That at heart there was an idealist who was willing to sacrifice himself and all about him for a better world. He did, however, have a weakness - he would not kill his friends. Time and again he stops the idealists from killing the Doctor. Its a good way for a character to depart and interesting to watch the character develop over the six episodes. Top stuff.

Finally we have the Doctor and Sarah. It has been claimed that Pertwee was running on autopilot for most of season 11. I can see no evidence of it here. In fact his portrayal in this one is one of my favourite EVER Pertwee performances. Swinging from that spiky no-nonsense boffin we know and love, to a warm humanity and someone who can actually sympathise with what the idealists are trying to achieve but not the way they are going about it. And no one can look more interested and engrossed in some silly bit of machinery then Jon Pertwee - he does it so well. And Lis Sladen? Adventure number two for her and the production team must have been rubbing their hands with glee with what they could do with Sarah Jane Smith. In this adventure she is superb - leading a rebellion, chasing off on her own leads, getting frustrated at her treatment at UNIT, showing scepticism and good humour at every opportunity. They could use her much more in the story then they ever could Jo Grant. Can you imagine Jo Grant opening an airlock to prove a point? Or standing up to the Elders so much that they talk about destroying her? Lis Sladen is a natural actress, she emotes easily and no one does fear quite like she does. Also, I love the seventies black leather jacket.

So there you have it. If my review hasn't convinced you to get a copy then shame on you. As I said before, it is fast moving up the list to become one of my favourite Pertwees and certainly is one of the more enjoyable UNIT adventures. Naff dinosaurs aside, it is a well constructed scripted tale with lots of special moments. Why has it had such a bad reputation for so long? I can think of worse effects (Erato, the green mattress in the pit for example) and what are you watching WHO for SFX for anyway?

To me it is the best of WHO, a little gem hiding away in season 11. Actually, keep quiet - it will be our little secret. A hidden treasure...

Most first episodes tend to be a let down. Who can forget the dismal freshman outing of Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, for Doctor Who the first 25 minutes are among the best of the series. Sadly, the remaining 75 minutes of the initial "story" are somewhat less gripping. The "Tribe of Gum" aside, "An Unearthly Child" soars. The mystery surrounding the TARDIS, and the origins of the Doctor himself, are more tangible in this episode than any in the 26 seasons that followed. Rather than introduce us to the eccentric title character directly, we meet him through the eyes of the two befuddled teachers. The indeed unearthly Susan is the perfect bait leading us into the story and finally to the hook. The hook of course is the Doctor. Unfortunately, William Hartnell's Doc is not the most likeable, and in many ways the least likeable of the first TARDIS crew. As we move into the last three episodes of the story, and meet the Tribe, the Doctor very nearly becomes villainous. The disagreeability of the Doctor is almost made up for when he argues his case with the bloody and not-so-bloody knife. Where I come from that's called fancy lawyerin'! Good practice for his Matlock-esque performance in "The Keys of Marinus."

There are a few problems with this classic. The Tribe of Gum is aptly named as the plot seems to get slower and stickier the further along we go. Okay, I am well aware of the TARDIS translator/Time Lord gift whachamacallit, and with a few exceptions it provides a charming solution to the age old enigma concerning why every alien race in the Universe speaks the Queen's English. This is one of those exceptions. Cavemen who can express themselves as eloquently as this group need less a quest for fire, and more a quest for literary agents. Isn't Horg writing for the New Yorker now? 

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm making too big a deal about the caveman vocabulary. Here's a challenge. Go read the Target novelisation and tell me if the level of conversation is Neanderthal or more like something you'd over hear at the Grocer's in 1963 England? Also, I'm surprised that a Tribe that lives exclusively on the darkest soundstage in London would choose the Sun as their deity. Have they ever seen the sun? I guess you don't have to see something to worship it, after all I've never actually seen Louise Jameson.