The Doctor Who Project

[ClaRK! Kent]

Welcome to The Doctor Who Project, a celebration of Time Lords, dimensional transcendence, sonic probes, and jelly babies.

Having been a fan of Doctor Who for as long as I can remember, largely due to my dad and his sister absolutely loving the show and essentially raising me on it since I was knee-high (one of my first memories is being hoisted onto my dad's shoulders at the Nebula '90 convention so I could see Sophie Aldred signing autographs all the way to the back of the queue) I've accumulated a pretty heavy amount of the show over the years, and with God Himself (aKa Russell T. Davies) having recently resurrected the series for a whole new generation, I've been getting a jonesing to go over some of the classics in eanrest again.

So, for the next 19 days, I will be endeavouring to watch all 19 classic Doctor Who serials I have on DVD (alas, VHS copy of Warriors of the Deep, we hardly knew ye...) and reviewing them for you, the reader/fan/person who has stumbled into this thread. If you love Doctor Who - ie: if you're English, Anglophile, or just slightly silly - then hopefully you'll enjoy it, if you're one of the people that has only watched the new stuff then hopefully you'll be inspired to check out the classics, and if you've never watched an episode of the show in your life, my prayers are with you and I hope I can convince you that this show is to television what On The Waterfront, Casablanca, and Saving Private Ryan are to cinema.

During the Project, I'll also be taking some time out each Saturday to review the latest episode of 'new Who' and hopefully provide a pleasant foil to whatever mad ravings timmayy is making in the official Who thread about how it sucks and it'd be far better if they totally rewrote the series to be set entirely in Wales, far more adult, and have edgier, sexy storylines. We all know it'd never fly.

Anyhow, here are the serials I will be reviewing, in order, starting tomorrow and continuing on for 19 days.

1. The Dalek Invasion of Earth starring William Hartnell as the First Doctor. The first ever 'rematch' in the show's history, pitting the grumpy old grandfather against the 'metal meanies from Skaro' for a second time. Notable for the departure of original time-babe Susan, and a hastily-rewritten episode halfway through that saw Hartnell all but cut out of 25 minutes of TV due to injuring himself taking a stunt the week before. And shitty effects. Always shitty effects.

2. Tomb of the Cybermen starring Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor. Probably the best Cybermen story of them all, this one had it all - menace, atmosphere, and crazy plot jumps all over the place. Also featuring the greatest male companion of all time and a Victorian lady adapting to life with a 500 year-old Time Lord from another planet, which is sure to make some great exposition scenes.

3. Infero starring Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor. Charm! Gadgets! Cars! Quips! A classic Jon Pertwee adventure showing the Third Doctor in full-on James Bond mode, in a parallel universe no less. All 'mirror universe' cliches are here in abundance, along with the most forgettable assistant of the series (Liz who...?) making her final appearance to the sounds of chirping crickets all over Britain.

4. Genesis of the Daleks starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Davros makes his debut appearance in a heavily allegorical tale about racial cleansing and absolute power, but with loads of Daleks and cool quips from Tom thrown in for good measure. Harry Sullivan, the last great 'action hero' companion is here, as is the abundantly cute Sarah Jane Smith, and you just know you're in for a treat when the action abruptly stops in episode 5 for a philosophical showdown between the Doc and Davros.

5. The Hand of Fear starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Sarah Jane leaves! Judith Paris wears very little! The plot is unexectedly resolved five minutes into the final episode... or so we think! A great example of the darker, more 'horror' direction the series was taking in the mid-seventies, with Tom on great form and a truly awesome final scene between the Doc and Sarah.

6. City of Death starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Douglas Adams wrote this one, you know, and his style is apparent in almost every line in a truly epic Parisian tale of time-splintered alien aristocrats, slow-witted detectives, and the importance of art. Yes, really. A classic of the Doctor/Romana relationship, truly epitomising a duo who won each time by being simultaneously smarter, sexier, and sillier than their foes.

7. The Keeper of Traken starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. The Master returns! Well, at the end of episode 4. By now, Tom's Doctor had an almost funerial tone about him, which was probably more to do with the Beeb having readily accepted his money-spinning 'this'll be my last year' bluff at the start of the season after 7 years. Nevertheless, Adric is vanilla and Nyssa is very nice, and the story is surprisingly good for one of the poorest script editors the show ever had.

8. Logopolis starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. 7 years of jelly babies, silly scarves, and big teeth come to an end on a big telescope somewhere in Sussex, but not before a ridiculously-complex plot involving maths that can change the universe, the Master (again) and a supremely annoying Australian called Tegan. Nevertheless, Tom acts his pants off for his last hurrah and goes out with a bang.

9. Castrovalva starring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor. The third in the 'return of the Master' trilogy, seeing a newly-regenerated Doctor impersonating his previous incarnations, getting lugged around in a box, and bringing 'end-of-episode-cliffhanger-acting' to a new level. The companions get a lot of screen time, largely due to the Doc's addled state, and the crowded TARDIS crew walk out victorious again. Duh.

10. Earthshock starring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor. Well, one of them had to go, but surely nobody expected they'd kill Adric? Hoped, sure, but never expected. The Cybermen make their return, camper and more melodramatic than ever for villains supposedly devoid of emotion, and in the end only the ultimate sacrifice of an annoying E-Space native with a maths badge can save the day - and cause the extinction of the dinosaurs, but who's counting?

11. Resurrection of the Daleks starring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor. Davros returns! The Daleks are back! Tegan finally buggers off! This one had it all, except a swift bullet between the eyes for Turlough. Rula Lenska (later of Celeb BB 'fame') and Leslie Grantham are notables amongst the guests, and everybody is on top form in putting the Daleks over as the crazy bastards we all know and love. Plus, one of the blokes from The Likely Lads plays a baddie.

12. The Caves of Androzani starring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor. You know you're in trouble when you contract a deadly disease ten minutes into episode one, and this one only escalates from there as the Doctor and his new companion Peri try to not only find a cure, but also negotiate peace between warring government officials and a crazy masked terrorist in some caves. They're always in bloody caves. This one is also notable for Davison being the only actor upstaged in his regeneration scene, thanks to a dodgy camera angle and his assistant's tits.

13. The Mark of The Rani starring Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor. Alright, who hired Kate O'Mara? Lovely woman, slightly out-of-place amidst the Industrial Revolution and Colin's brash, off-the-wall Doctor, leaving Peri utterly confused as always and the fans strangely transfixed. Jokes about 'wooden acting' are abound as the dashing guest male is turned into a tree, and the day is saved in the end as usual. Plus the Master's here, but he's really not that important here, reduced to just chuckling like a dime-store Olivier.

14. Revelation of the Daleks starring Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor. 60s plot devices are back with a vengeance as the writers sneakily rewrite The Power of the Daleks with a 1980s twist, although they get to show the Doc shooting at stuff, so it's all good. Plus Alexi Sayle's in it too, so that's cool. The Daleks are reduced to henchmen again here, a fairly common problem with Davros-centric episodes, but they're still daunting and stuff.

15. Remembrance of the Daleks starring Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. Aaaah, now this is more like it. The Doctor and Ace are probably the best Doc/assistant team of the classic series, and they're both firing on all cylinders in a story that has it all. Flying Daleks! Meta-references! Anti-racist interludes! Betrayals! Other stuff! We start to see McCoy's development into the darker and more sinister Doctor we all wanted him to be, and this is probably the best Dalek story of the 80s.

16. Ghost Light starring Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. No, I don't understand the plot, but according to the commentary, neither did anybody else so yippee. A bizzare story of evolution, alien survey teams and a cracked Victorian game hunter out to kill Queen Victoria, this one showed the Doctor manipulating anyone and everyone around him to his own ends, even Ace, who looks quite nice in a dress really. Even with the mad plot, the one-liners make up for all sins.

17. The Curse of Fenric starring Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. We all love it when they do WW2. This one had more to do with Vikings, of course, as a quaint seaside village is torn about in 1941 by sneaky Soviets, a mad professor and barnacle-encrusted vampires. Nicholas Parsons is superb as a priest losing the faith, and in a story all about faith he's a key part of the puzzle - a puzzle which finishes with the Doctor confronting an old foe as the devious bugger we love to mistrust.

18. Survival starring Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. The final adventure of the classic series, and by rights the new series writers should've paid royalties to the writer of this one for Rose Tyler's backstory, attitude, and mannerisms. It ended up a bit silly with crazy cat people in silly fur masks, but the script is dynamite and features the last appearance of the Master as played by the late, great Anthony Ainley. Plus, the Doctor goes a bit mental and loses his hat, but returns in time to enthuse about cold tea and other horrors as he and Ace stroll off into the sunset.

19. Doctor Who The Movie starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. Look, Russell T. Davies says it's canon, so it's canon. Not actually all that bad in its own right, it suffered from its major continuity blasphemies (half-human on his mother's side? Aaaah!) and the tacked-on romantic subplot, and also from an actor who had no idea how to play the Master in the horrible Eric Roberts, but McGann's portrayal shines through and hints that a 'what might have been' attitude might be the best way to look at this one.

Yipes. That's a lot of stuff. Well, anyway, do join me tomorrow for a bumper double edition, featuring reviews of not only The Dalek Invasion of Earth, but also 2007's The Lazarus Experiment, featuring possibly the only thing grislier than David Tennant's sideburns, in the form of an insectoid Mark Gattiss.

This is probably going to kill me, you know.

PS: Here is a picture of Ace. Because she is nice. Enjoy.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

During the Project, I'll also be taking some time out each Saturday to review the latest episode of 'new Who' and hopefully provide a pleasant foil to whatever mad ravings timmayy is making in the official Who thread about how it sucks and it'd be far better if they totally rewrote the series to be set entirely in Wales, far more adult, and have edgier, sexy storylines. We all know it'd never fly.

Edited May 8, 2007 by Mushiking timmayy

[Skummy]

Doctor Who The Movie? Ugh. Despite being McGann's second best performance (if you have to ask what his first was, you're not a film fan), it's utter fucking shite. I don't care if it's canon or not, it pissed all over the Dr Who story, especially the half-human bullshit. Horrible, horrible attempt at marketing the most British phenomenon in modern media to an uninterested American audience.

Fantastic choice of Tom Baker episodes, each one you chose is fucking brilliant. He's by far my favourite doctor, and I'd hate to have to choose episodes of his in any kind of form, but I'd be willing to bet that if I did, it'd look something like your list.

[lanky316]

Thanks for the picture of Ace. Oh my joy when my brother was watching kids stuff on Living years ago and she was doing all the link bits in between...

She was also the first assistant to really have the spark they try to give the new assistants wasn't she?

[ClaRK! Kent]

The Dalek Invasion of Earth

Starring William Hartnell as the First Doctor

Okay, let's get the easy stuff out of the way first - the effects are fucking silly, and anybody familiar with the 'established' continuity of the Daleks from Genesis of the Daleks onwards will be left scratching their heads, because let's face it, Terry Nation had no idea it'd take off like he did. Effects-wise, we've got wobbly Daleks, spaceships clearly held up by pieces of wire and 'flown' over a drawing of Big Ben, backgrounds painted onto stage flats (and a few Daleks too, to make the 6 working Dalek props stretch a bit and look like an actual invasion force) and a creature in episode 4 that seems to have no apparent purpose other than to scare Ian and a local for a bit, and then fall into a well. And it's made out of bubble wrap, apparently.

Aside from the crappy effects, this is actually a really good story. If you don't own any William Hartnell stories, or if you've only seen the emo Daleks from the new series, this is well worth checking out to see where the Daleks came from, and for the slightly morbid humour of watching an actor succumb to arteriosclerosis on screen. Well, I laughed. There's a real sense of fear from the outset, the TARDIS lands under a bridge with a huge poster proclaiming "It is ILLEGAL to dump bodies into the river" which just creeps you out, although does raise the question of how the Daleks can put posters up with sink plungers. I digress. Also cool are the numerous scenes of Daleks in London, buzzing about the Thames bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral, all of them using the plungers to make psuedo-Nazi gestures, which feeds into Genesis of the Daleks quite well and would also have been a pretty convincing visual cue for 'evil' in 1964.

3:10 in, Susan sprains her ankle, which is one of the longest times she's been present on any planet before injuring herself. You can see why Carole Ann Ford wanted to leave after a lack of character development, because from very promising beginnings as an 'unearthly child' she rapidly became 'second screamer' behind Barbara, and mostly was there to look sexy and swinging. Which she does very well, of course, and her performance in this episode was actually outstanding once she met love interest David Campbell, a gruff but sensitive young resistance fighter who helps her survive while she teaches him about fun and stuff. They even kiss at one point, but the Doctor walks in and they spring apart as if he'll tan her hide. Which Hartnell's Doc probably would've done.

By this story, much of the original characterisation of the Doctor, which I remember from watching An Unearthly Child and 100,000 BC on VHS, has gone. Originally, he was a sinister anti-hero with uncertain motives, but by now he's mellowed into a slightly irascible old grandfather who knows lots of interesting things about magnets and stuff, which is nice too. He gets Ian's surname wrong no less than 3 times in this story, which would be a record until he started to really suffer from his illness the following season. Speaking of suffering, Hartnell is entirely absent from episode 4 after ill-advisedly allowing an extra to carry him down the entrance ramp of the Dalek ship in an escape scene, only to be dropped and bump his hip. So, David gets most of the Doctor's lines, which is slightly unusual for a 'nice but uneducated' human living in post-invasion London. How the bloody Hell does he know what melts polycarbide anyway, he's the one making the tea! Actually, he's not, the women do that, but you know what I mean.

Sexism is rife at first here, as Ian goes off to explore with the Doctor, leaving the infinitely more mobile Barbara dealing with Susan's sprained leg. They are, predictably, whisked away by the secondary characters for exposition and emoting, whilst the Doctor comes up with theories and Ian fights Robomen, which is far more interesting to watch. Anyway, they head back off to find the girls, who are by now hearing all about the resistance without knowing who it's against. Surely that'd be the first thing they got told? Back at the riverside, Ian and the Doc are confused about what happened here, only for a Dalek to come up out of the river in a HUGELY ICONIC SHOT, and make it all very clear.

The plot gets very silly after episode 2, really. Everybody's split up and given lots to do, as Ian thinks everybody's dead and journeys to Bedfordshire to find out why it's such a big mine nowadays, Barbara looks after the wheelchair-bound resistance leader with another girl, because they're women you know, whilst the Doctor and Susan investigate some sewers for shits and giggles. They probably had a good reason, but you never know because they're too busy with silly camera angles and stock footage of alligators. Anyway, the Doc gets a bump on his head and disappears, until near the end of episode 5 when everybody decides to go off to Bedfordshire too. They're all there by episode 6, which makes one wonder just what Ian was doing as it took him most of episode 4 to get there.

It turns out - in the most scientifically-bankrupt plot hole of all time - that the Daleks are planning to mine out the magnetic core of Earth, replace it with an engine, and pilot it around the galaxy. Because clearly, those flying saucers are less convenient than a planet full of armed and angry natives. Oh well, the Doctor saves the day and bamboozles the Daleks, whilst some miners (led by a young Mr. Rumbold out of Are You Being Served?, no less) rebel against the Daleks. They're really far less impressive than the Doctor always gives 'em credit for, you know. Ecclestone said that a single Dalek could kill 12,000,000 people in Salt Lake City on its own, but these ones get thrown around like footballs by a load of malnourished, angry Northerners. Bah.

Speaking of the Daleks, they're actually quite bizarre here. The original voice artist, Peter Hawkins, is on fine form and probably does the voices better than anybody else - he's the only one who really thought about what it'd be like to be trapped in a metal box all one's life, and the angry cries are masking a deep layer of panic and fear which is beautiful. By contrast, Roy Skelton just sounded like Zippy when he was doing it. The Slither (the bubble-wrap creature) is revealed to be an escape pet of the Black Dalek... which is just fucking confusing. Although it does conjour up a nice image of the Dalek coming home from a hard day's killing and wearily feeding the Slither, before curling up on the couch to watch Neighbours or something. Another weird thing is the presence of chairs here and there on the Dalek ship, long before they resorted to human allies (a fact satired in the BBC Comic Relief spoof The Curse of the Fatal Death of course. I'll explain later) and that they all seem to be a bit drunk, sometimes bumping into doors and veering around, but this was very early in the series' run and the props were notoriously difficult to deal with, so I can let it slide.

And, at the end of the story - Susan leaves! Wail! Weep! Say it ain't so! This one is quite weird, because she doesn't choose to stay. Instead, Hartnell locks her out of the TARDIS and speaks to her on the intercom, claiming that he's been very selfish by keeping her with him, failing to notice she's become a young woman, and can't offer her a real life. David, a broke revolutionary with the odd scar who's only real skill so far has been shooting at stuff, seems like good marriage material to the Doc, so he leaves his granddaughter with him on a war-torn, ravaged planet to rebuild it from scratch. Still, they play it emotionally with no hint of paedophilia, so that's a bonus. The Doctor claims he'll come back for her one day, but he hasn't yet and it's been like 30 years and counting, not even taking into account that the Doc's age jumps from 450 in the Troughton years to 900+ by McCoy. He's left her for over 500 years relative time! When the Hell was he planning to go back?!

Either way, despite the dodgy effects and sometimes-bizarre plot, this is a really good story. Lots of excitement, the original Doctor in good form, screaming galore from the girls, and some really good character development that probably would've convinced Carole Ann Ford to stay on if she'd been getting those kind of lines since day one.

As far as the DVD edition of this story goes, it's not bad. It has an option to watch it with improved CGI effects, which is nice although I think it takes away from some of the charm of the story really. Also featured are the usual links and bits from other shows (including a Blue Peter where you get to learn how to make Dalek cakes!!!) a documentary about making the episode from everybody who's still alive, except any of the main cast, producers, or crew. Basically, it's the supporting cast talking about how nice Verity Lambert was and that Bill Hartnell was grumpy. The commentary is pretty poor, because they're all quite old and much of the time, any question that might lead to an interesting or amusing anecdote is answered by 5 seconds of talk and then "...gosh, do you know, I can't remember?" Also, people keep disappearing and re-entering between episodes, presumably to go to the bathroom. Old people, weak bladders you know.

RK's RATING - 7/10. Buy it if you're a fan or you're lacking Hartnell from your collection, but it's probably not the best place to start a collection or to try and get into the show if you're a newb. Anyway, here's a picture of Susan...

I'll be sticking up a review of The Lazarus Experiment soon, maybe tomorrow morning though. But...

Next time on THE DOCTOR WHO PROJECT - The Tomb of the Cybermen

Silver foil! Cosmic hoboes! Scotsmen! Short skirts! Even shorter skirts! Cybermen (obviously)!

[Dingle]

Is this the cybermen episode where they are hidden in a sewer wall?

Or on their home planet with the weird ice people? (I have forgotten the name. I just remember the book; "The Tenth Planet")

[ClaRK! Kent]

The sewer one was The Invasion I believe, and The Tenth Planet was old Bill's final one. This one is set on Telos, the Cybermen's second home planet, with a survey team trying to discover why the Cybermen died out hundreds of years back. Predictably, they're just hibernating in these big honeycomb things in the walls.

[Dingle]

Ah yes, I recall that.

Vaguely anyways...hmm. Is it with Troughton?

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Bwahaha, great review there had me laughing. I remember randomly getting the urge to watch the first ever episode, so I can visualise some of the effects. Some of the effects were well dodgy in the pilot and the most complicated thing they had to create was a scrapyard. But anyhow, the Genesis of the Daleks DVD has the nice little documentary on Daleks, so I can recall the Dalek rising out of the water.... that was awesome.

I look forward to your review of Tomb, and The Lazarus Experiment (or the good season three episode as I like to call it >_>)

Sorry, that was cheap and I didn't entirely mean it!

But yeah, enough of my ramblings, I really enjoyed the review, it was witty and with just the right amount of depth to give the reader enough info of the plot and what's happening without telling the story, so well done. A longer recap section would be brilliant, but with the length of the actual main body of review I can see why it was short. Well done and keep this up for the next 18 days! (Don't you have like work or something....?)

Edited May 9, 2007 by Mushiking timmayy

[DFF]

I must say I really enjoyed that review. Witty and informative.

Can't wait to read the next one.

[ClaRK! Kent]

The Tomb of the Cybermen

Starring Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor

Ah, now this is more like it. The effects are still ropey from time-to-time, but it's amazing how far the storytelling has come in two years, as well as the budget, and Lord knows that Patrick Troughton was a far better actor than the loveable but very unwell William Hartnell. I'm going to say this now - Patrick Troughton > Tom Baker. No, really. Think about it - if they'd given the role to a less talented actor after Hartnell left, the series would've gone south and died right there. I love Tom as much as the next person, but when he took over he had far less pressure than Pat, who dealt with it admirably and created probably the most well-rounded and interesting of the early Doctors, and he's up there with Sylvester McCoy for deviousness at times.

Anyway, onto the story. We have a nice little prelap with Victoria, Jamie, and the Doctor in the TARDIS. Victoria, who is from Victorian times (get it?) and rather primitive, cannot believe that the ship travels in space and time. She's even more stunned when the Doctor turns out to be 450 years old, and more surprised by far when the Doctor tells her that her dress will be unsuitable if she's to join him and Jamie in their adventures (he actually uses the word adventures, too, which is just quite neat) and is whisked off to change. Jamie asks for a smooth takeoff, and the Doctor's response is a nice flash of the old Hartnell character.

When we join the story proper, some archeologists are poking about the planet Telos, blowing some holes in a gravel quarry. New. Anyway, they manage to uncover a set of very large doors and apparently there's been a huge recession by whenever this is, as the workmen are offered £50 if they can get the door open. One poor sap tries it and gets electrocuted, and the Doctor arrives just in time to help them de-electrify the door. Nobody can open it, because it's heavy, so the large black servant Toberman (probably the most racist character since Mickey Rooney played a Japanese guy in Breakfast at Tiffany's) opens it instead. He grunts and is otherwise stoic, so he's probably evil. As is his handler, the sexy-in-an-older-woman-type-of-way Kaftan, and her buddy Klieg.

The Doctor decides that, since these silly people are trying to find out why the Cybermen all died out, they'd better tag along to make sure they don't all get themselves killed. Nobody can work out the computer system in the main chamber, except the Doctor, who is just cleverer than you. There's a few nice touches here as Klieg, who proclaims himself to be a master logician, works out several symbolic logic gates and tries them - only for the Doctor to sneakily adjust them behind his back and the door opens, to Klieg's triumphant shout of "I did it!" as the Doc just smiles and says "I love to watch the experts at work, don't you?" Oh Pat, you sneaky devil. They all decide to split off into parties and investigate different rooms. Victoria discovers that the Cybermen must have been giants, and is 'accidentally' trapped in a random alcove by Kaftan, whilst Jamie and a Redshirt investigate a room with a seemingly inocuous computer. Pressing buttons at random is never a wise move, and results in the Redshirt being shot and a Cyberman appearing! DUN DUN DUN!

It's only a fake Cyberman, for target practice, though. D'oh. Anyhow, the delightfully American rocket ship captain returns, announcing that nobody can leave because his ship's been sabotaged! DUN DUN DUN! Everybody decides to stay overnight and not abandon the trip after all, as had been suggested after the Redshirt deaths. The Doctor has a nice scene with Victoria here at night time, talking about her dead father and his own family, and it's nice to see a sensitive, fatherly side to a character who was getting a reputation for being simply a cosmic buffoon by this time with his blundering and silliness.

We finally head down through the ominous-looking hatch in the main room, only Victoria and Kaftan stay behind. They eat space food, which predictably comes in pill form, and Kaftan drugs Victoria in order to seal everybody in the undercity! DUN DUN DUN! Whilst they're down there, Klieg reveals his devious plot - his group of logicians are the greatest intelligence on Earth, but in order to bring that intelligence to power they need to strike a deal with the notoriously evil and inflexible Cybermen, who have invaded Earth no less than 4 times by this timeline if my calculations are correct. Yeah. Anyway, he unfreezes the Cybermen - who, by the way, look far cooler here than they do at any time until roughly 1983, despite their numerous redesigns by various producers - despite the Doctor's protestations, and the terrible Cybercontroller is unleashed. Complete with massive brain. You can tell he's the leader because of the massive brain. And because he's the only one who has lines. And he finishes episode 2 with the classic, and now famous line, said in the most terrible voice they've ever had - "You belong to us. You shall be like us." DUN DUN DUN!

At this point, it's worth taking a moment to espouse the virtues of Patrick Troughton's portrayal of the Doctor. All the while, he's wanted to get down into the undercity and see what's up with the Cybermen, to seal them down there forever, and it's his well-timed insistences of "you'd best be careful!" and his seeming idiocy, along with his rewriting of Klieg's calculations and flipping the odd switch, that have gotten them all here. He's a very manipulative character, and it's so subtle that you barely notice it the first time around. Of course, when danger strikes, as it does right now, he instantly looses all sense of everything. Patrick Troughton is the best person in the world to have the words "put your hands up!" said in the vicinity of, because he really does. Put your hands up now, go on. Naturally, mind. Your hands are sort of hovering by your head, right? Not Pat, his hands are touching the ceiling and there's a look of utterly hilarious terror on his face, all in the space of 0.3 seconds.

Anyway, I digress and enthuse. The Cybermen recognise the Doctor and threaten him, whilst he realises that the tombs are just an elaborate trap (but not before utterly my favourite line ever - "Why did you submit yourselves to freezing?" *Cyberman turns to him menacingly, Doctor starts stammering* "Y-You don't have to answer that, if you don't want to!") designed to find people clever enough to work out the logic gates. They're to be turned into a new race of Cybermen, because apparently a race of people is an expedition party of maybe 9 people all told. Well, to be fair, you never really see more than 7 Cybermen so who are we to judge how big their society really was?

They all escape to the top, where the Americans have opened the hatch and incapacitated Kaftan, whilst Klieg clings to the belief that he can bargain with the Cybermen, if only he was in a stronger position to bargain. For a part of "the greatest mass intelligence ever assembled," he's pretty fucking stupid. He's dumped into the testing room with Kaftan to keep them out of trouble, but the Cybermen have other weapons! Giant metal caterpillars to be precise! Cybermats attack! DUN DUN DUN! The Doctor comes to the rescue after much running and screaming, using a length of wiring to electrify the creatures and overload them - "you might almost say", he tells Jamie, "that they've had a complete metal breakdown." D'oh. But unfortunately, nobody remembered to check the room they were keeping Klieg in for guns, and he emerges with a Cybergun and shoots! DUN DUN DUN!

He only hits one of the American people, who isn't that important, and Klieg opens the hatch, calling up the Cybercontroller. Unfortunately, he brings Toberman with him, who has been partially Cyberfied, but hides his new metal arms with a cloak. Clever. The Cybercontroller is rather weak as power is running low - evidently they forgot to pay the bill before entering deep freeze - and Klieg orders for it to be revitalised in the random alcove. It breaks out, fully charged, and attacks everybody, killing Kaftan. Now, of course, Toberman seems to come around - he was probably in love with her and we were supposed to get it from his wooden glances - and attacks the Cybercontroller, killing him, as Jamie attacks other Cybermen with the Cybergun. The Doctor rushes down with Toberman to freeze the Cybermen, and after a brief tussle with Klieg - who is killed by a Cyberman - they manage to do so. Everybody goes to leave until the Cybercontroller reveals itself not to be dead and attacks the Doctor and Jamie, who run. They all try to close the doors, but only Toberman is strong enough and seals them - the resulting electric shock kills everyone. Surely the Cybermen are at least partially resistant to electricity? I mean, they seem to shoot the stuff out of their hands at some points in this story, I figured they'd be at least able to channel the stuff. Alas. Everybody leaves, happy that it is over, but nobody notices a lone Cybermat moving along the floor! DUN DUN DUN!

This is really an absolute classic as far as the old Who is concerned, it really is. A fantastic plot, some great characters and good dialogue, mixed with the best Cybermen the series ever came up with, and they were really trying their damndest to be as good as these ones ever since. The Doctor is marvellously manipulative as the cosmic Chaplin who acts the fool to get everybody to do what he wants, and Victoria settles into her role nicely and seems to have more to say other than the occasional scream. Yay for her. Plus, Jamie > your best mate. Probably.

As the DVD goes, it's one of the older ones so there's less special stuff, but there's a really good commentary from Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling, the companions, who are far better than their counterparts on the Dalek Invasion of Earth DVD by actually being able to remember stuff. Apart from that, there's some footage of a Q&A session at the screening of the episode when it was found after being lost for ages, and a little documentary about the efforts that were undertaken to find it when it went missing. Nice, but nothing special really, especially in comparison to some of the more recent stuff.

RK's RATING - 9/10. You need this story in your collection, it's that simple. An absolute classic, the best Cyberman story they ever did, and a thoroughly great romp from start to finish. The 2 hours will literally fly by, you'll be enjoying yourself so much. This is the ultimate collection-starter, and an absolute must for the serious fan. Oh, and here's a picture of Victoria...

Next Time on THE DOCTOR WHO PROJECT - Inferno

Parallel universes! Nazi parodies! Large drills! Romantic subplots! The Brigadier with an eyepatch! Jon Pertwee!

[The One Bad Ass Outlaw]

Bang on. Tomb is wicked, and Troughton is also my favourite Doctor.

Can't wait to see what you think of the DVDs we share, especially The Movie, which I personally think gets a slightly raw deal from a lot of fandom.

[Skummy]

I watched the movie twice last night, and I can safely say it gets all it deserves. Throws spanners in the works of established backstory, and just does a horrible job of trying to sell the franchise to one audience while not alienating another...and just fails at everything. Just not good.