Review by Guy Clapperton
Stars William Hartnell, Peter Purves, Jackie Lane | Written by Paul Erickson & Lesley Scott
UK certification PG | UK RRP £19.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 90 minutes | Directed by Michael Imison
In many ways this story doesn’t work. The monsters, the monoids, are a disaster – mop-topped loons, mute for the first two episodes, no mouths you can see because the actors are operating the single eye with their mouths, and feet that don’t appear adapted for walking on land. A flaccid support cast means there’s no way this programme should take off.
Luckily the regulars, including the much-underrated Peter Purves, add some spirit. Jackie Lane as Dodo was probably the first naff companion – not her fault but she was often heard with a different accent from story to story, which did little to help, and eventually was written out in the middle of a four-parter without so much as a farewell scene. Here she’s OK but nothing special – her main dramatic function is to sneeze a bit. Purves has more to do trying to organise the space colonists, and Hartnell is at his imperious best (show this to your kids and tell them that’s the same character Matt Smith plays these days!)
It’s at the end of episode two that the story really takes off. Without giving too much away, it looks like a two parter; the Doctor and companions cure the mess they’ve made (note that – there’s no ‘villain’ in here) and leave. Then they travel to the future and discover the mess they’d unknowingly left behind.
For the first time – and the last, for ages – the time travellers are brought face to face with consequences of their journeying through the fabric of time. This adds a bit of punch to what could have, maybe should have, been a terrible tale even if it did get an elephant into the studio. It has a charm, but also a purpose, and a real story to tell which lifts it above the level of so many other of the mid-to-late Hartnells.
That said, the John Wiles produced years like this feel a lot less substantial than the earlier tales from Verity Lambert. The jungle, the spaceship, they all feel like the TV studio they were. Somehow the first few outings, with the majestic Skaro, the ultra-bleak Vortis and others managed to go a bit beyond this.
So, one of the best of its era if not one of the very best. But well worth a look if you can get over the comical aliens.
EXTRAS ★★★ An audio commentary with actor Peter Purves and director Michael Imison, moderated by Toby Hadoke; All’s Well’s That Ends Wells, an odd piece on the influence of HG Wells on the good Doctor’s adventures; One Hit Wonder (4:33), a very slight piece on why some monsters like the Monoids appear only once. Er… have you looked at them?; Riverside Story, essentially a Peter Purves interview – he’s pretty engaging about his work on The Ark; and a photo gallery.