Sunday 24 November 2019

Doctor Who Night 2019: DOCTOR. WHO. IS. REQUIRED.

The War Machines seems strange when looked at from the other side of many years of the Doctor saving present-day Earth, but this was the first.

Sir Charles thinks a handful of policemannys would be enough to defeat WOTAN, but when he describes the War Machines as being "like a tank" the Minister takes no chances and sends in the army - perhaps he had been briefed on the Coal Hill School Incident from a few years earlier?

This is famously the only story where the Doctor is referred to as "Doctor Who" as though that is his name, leading to some speculation as to why WOTAN does so - I like the theory that he has mistaiken the Doctor for Doctor Who, i.e. the character played by Peter Cushing in the two '60s films. It certainly isn't a mistaik by the story's writer - other characters have no problems in calling the Doctor the Doctor.

The War Machines themselves look really derpy, lol.


The Tenth Planet is, in a way, the counterpoint to An Unearthly Child - not only are they the last and first William Hartnell stories, but also in that An Unearthly Child is mainly remembered for its first episode, while The Tenth Planet is mainly remembered for its last part - where we see the first ever regeneration.

Of course the story is also notable for containing the first appearance of the Cybermannys, but the middle of the story goes in some strange directions as though it was being made up as they went along - not only does Snowcap base act as Mission Control for the spacemannys, it also has a Zee-Bomb (short for Zippy-Bomb, designed to destroy any monsters voiced by Roy Skelton) there.

This leads to some highly questionable lines of science dialogue, such as
"But don't you see, General? A nuclear explosion on Mondas would deliver a terrific blast of radiation, enough to destroy all the life on the side of the Earth that's facing it. It might even turn into a sun, a sort of supernova."
I'm no Cat Scientist, but that sounds like bollocks to me. Possibly superbollocks, or even hyperbollocks.

And thank goodness Polly was there to make them coffee, or else those poor mannys might have died of thirst.