DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 25th MEET-UP - THE TENTH PLANET

Saturday 10th January 2015

Wow!  This was it - the end of the Hartnell road.  It had nearly been a year since we had all set off on this journey - well all except Shaun who joined us later!  However he hadn't missed out as he'd been beavering away, in his own time, watching all the stories that he'd missed!  Yes, even "The Web Planet"!  So, a nice thing was that, after a big push, he was fully caught up with us for this final Hartnell meet-up!

Sadly I'd already revealed that this was Hartnell's last story to the group - I sort of wish that I had kept it a surprise and saw how they reacted - but anyhow it did give us a reason to celebrate so I thought it would be nice to meet on a Saturday night and have a few drinkies
to celebrate!

So we all (including Gavin who was with us again) gathered around Jason's house (where we'd met for our very first meet-up).  Jason had very nicely left some Jelly Babies for us (though this reference won't make sense until Doctor number four!) and a lovely printed photo of the First Doctor which Shaun had printed off for us (which we placed just below the TV) and we all sat down to watch Hartnell's swan-song: "The Tenth Planet".

Photo 1: Gavin (holding the sign), Leigh (with the DVD cover),
Shaun (holding a photo of the First Doctor),
Jim, Mark and Jason around Jason's house.
All celebrating with some cheap bubbly!

The story was set in the future - in the year of 1986!!!  And the first episode (with a funky animated title card) starts with the TARDIS landing at the South Pole.  Leaving the TARDIS Ben, Polly and the Doctor are soon surrounded by armed men who have come from a nearby snowbase (called Snowcap).  Wondering what the heck they are doing there the men take our TARDIS crew into the base for questioning.

Inside some men interrogate our heroes eventually calling for a very grumpy General Cutler!  He has no time for nonsense and puts them into an observation room to deal with them later.  In the meantime the base is having trouble with a space ship (Zeus IV) which has contacted them because it keeps being taken off course and whatever is taking it off course is draining it's power!

Photo 2: Gavin (holding the sign),
MJ (holding a photo of the First Doctor),
Shaun (with the DVD cover),
 Jim, Jason and Mark around Jason's house.
All celebrating with some cheap bubbly!

The Doctor writes a note on a piece of paper saying what he thinks is the issue, the base crew ignore this and carry on trying to work out what the issue is.  They finally see what's been causing the issue - there is a new planet up in the sky - it is the mirror image of Earth (with all the landmasses upside down).  The Doctor then tells them (specifically Doctor Barclay) to look at his piece of paper and on this he has predicted that there would be a new planet in the sky.  This new planet was the Earth's twin - Mondas - but it became a rogue planet, soaring through the galaxy!  A completely nonsense idea - but one I liked just for it's sheer fun!

The General doesn't believe a lot of what is going on and suspects the Doctor has caused all the issues - he gets a couple of his men to go outside and try and break into the TARDIS - but when they can't one of them goes back to getting cutting equipment.  During all this a strange spaceship lands and one of the occupants of the spaceship comes along and knocks out the remaining man by the TARDIS!  He then knocks out the other guy when he returns and we see the full reveal of a robot with human hands - a Cyberman!   That's where we leave the first episode.

Photo 3: Leigh (with the DVD cover),
Shaun (very happily holding a photo of the First Doctor),
and Jim (holding a mini TARDIS around Jason's house.
All celebrating with some cheap bubbly.

Onto episode 2 and we have the General still not believing the Doctor about visitors from the alien planet - well that is until the Cybermen enter the base - disguised in the clothes of the chaps they killed outside!  The Cybermen explain that their planet, Mondas, was Earth's twin and as that they were once like humans but had slowly replaced most of their body parts with cybernetic parts - most importantly they had removed all emotions! 

Polly pleads that they allow them to try and save the lives of the crew of the spaceship
Zeus IV - but the lead Cybermen tells them there is no point as they will be dead! This leads to my favourite exchange:
POLLY: But don't you care?
CYBERMAN 1: Care? No, why should I care?
POLLY: Because they're people and they're going to die!
CYBERMAN 1: I do not understand you. There are people dying all over your world yet you do not care about them.....

Fantastic stuff.  In fact the Cybermen don't come across as really evil.  In fact, as far as they are aware, their main objective to turn humans into Cybermen - free from disease, pain, suffering.  They certainly aren't like the Daleks who destroy life and certainly don't want to "help" other creatures become like them.

Photo 4: Gavin (holding the sign),
MJ (holding a photo of the First Doctor),
Shaun (with the DVD cover),
 Jim (holding a mini TARDIS keyring),
Jason and Mark around Jason's house.
All celebrating with some cheap bubbly!

Still the Cybermen do allow the base to contact the space ship but it's too late - Mondas's pull is too strong and the ship explodes.  Back in the base Ben takes a gun from a dead soldier and tries to unsuccessfully use it against the Cybermen - but this doesn't work and he gets locked away!

In the mean time it's discovered that General Cutler's son has been sent up in a rocket (Zeus V) to try and rescue the crew of the Zeus IV - of course it's too late now and his son is trapped in orbit.  The base then discovers that a fleet of Cybermen ships are coming to the Earth!

Episode 3 starts with the Doctor fainting (another break for William Hartnell then - in fact I believe that "The Doctor" that we see fainting probably was another actor in disguise!  Ben and Polly take the Doctor to some quarters with Polly saying that he seems "worn out".  The sad fact is that, about from brief clips, this is the last we see of the Doctor.  He'll be back for the last episode, but as that's missing we'll only have an animated Doctor!

Anyhow in the meantime General Cutler is getting more gruff and irritable - now that his boy is in danger he wants to launch a Z-Bomb (a series of nuclear bombs that are placed at strategic points around the world) to destroy Mondas.  His bosses at Geneva refuse but he re-words the question asking if he can do anything he deems suitable in order to destroy the Cybermen.  His bosses agree and Cutler takes this as permission to use the bomb!
Ben argues with General Cutler saying this isn't what the Doctor wanted but Cutler doesn't care and locks Ben up - this leaves Polly in the control room where she convinces Doctor Barclay to help her save Ben so they can diffuse the bomb.

So whilst this happens more Cybermen land but the General soldiers destroy them (with some of the old weapons left by the other Cybermen!) but of course more will be on their way.

Meanwhile Ben has been released by Polly and has reached the bomb to disarm it but during this he is discovered by Cutler and knocked out.  The episode ends with Ben coming around and not remembering if he'd succeeded in his mission or not - whilst the launch of the bomb countdown approaches zero.....!

Photo 5: Jason holds Shaun's print-out of the First Doctor
around his house.

Episode 4 is lost.  It's an episode that many people would like to see returned but in the meantime we have many still tele-snaps, the audio and now an animated version!  It's this animated version we watch and it starts with the Doctor recovered and back in the control room.  He's just in time to see the Z-bomb failing to launch - this angers Cutler so much that he ignores the fact that Cybermen have entered the base and that Mondas is about to blow-up!  All he wants to do is kill the Doctor - luckily he himself are killed by the Cybermen who have just enetered the base.

Anyhow lots happens, The Doctor and Polly are taken to the Cyber ship and held captive whilst Ben is made to disarm the bomb.  He wonders why, quite rightly, the MUCH stronger Cybermen aren't doing it themselves?  He deduces that they must be afraid of the radiation - which they are and he uses this (holding a rod of radioactive stuff with tongues) to attack the Cybermen and get out of the room and run around the base.

Anyhow most of this is irrelevant as Mondas soon melts (I'd have loved to see how they did this!) and, as this was where they draw their power from, all the Cyberman (all over the world) collapse and die.

And so that's the end of the Cybermen - I guess we'll never see them again....!

Of course Ben rescues Polly and the Doctor but the Doctor is in a very sorry state.  He mumbles some nonsense stuff and stumbles quickly back to the TARDIS - leaving Ben and Polly to follow confused!  Once they de-materialise the Doctor collapses and in a long flash of blinding white light changes into a completely different man!  Welcome to Doctor Two!

Of course the regeneration footage does actually exist (thanks to being shown in Blue Peter), so after the end of the episode I showed the proper footage to the gang.  So there we go!  The end of Hartnell.  I felt we needed to celebrate and we all said cheers with a bottle of Lambrini!

Photo 6: Three Jelly Babies pose in front of my
TARDIS key ring around Jason's house.
This reminds me of a shot of three Yeti's in front of the TARDIS in a
later story - but that's not for now!

I did like the last story but have to say that I found the sound-quality to be rather bad!  Maybe that was just me!  The story itself was quite silly in places but it had enough fun characters and stuff going on that I could forgive it!  The Cybermen were a huge success in my books.  I honestly feel that they are the creepiest they have ever been in this story.  I loved the odd sing-song way in which they spoke and the look is awesome - Cybermen are supposed to be human's augmented with electronic parts and they really look like it in this! They have human hands, they have human mouths and I like the cumbersome look they have.  It's like they've been put together, not because a funky-design ethic, but through a necessity to survive.  It really feels like the need all the bulky equipment.

However, here we are at the end of nearly a years worth of viewing, with no more Hartnell (unless he comes back for some sort of anniversary special of something....!) and I felt it was time to reflect.  We all talked about the companions and I think everyone felt that Ian and Barbara couldn't be topped (those early stories really were the best) - though we really liked Vicki.  Plus, although we've only had them for a couple of stories, Ben and Polly seem like they could be really good!  Already they seem a lot more fun than Steven and Dodo.

We also had a little poll on what we thought were our favourite stories of each season.
Season 1 was a strong season and Jason opted for the completely missing "Marco Polo", Mark went for "The Aztecs", Shaun was an "Edge of Destruction" man whereas the rest of us went for "The Keys of Marinus" (though I was torn between this and Marco Polo).
So "The Keys of Marinus" was the winner!

Season 2 was another strong season and this split us all a bit more!  Shaun was a fan of "The Dalek Invasion Of Earth" whereas Leigh liked "The Rescue".  However the winner was a draw between Jim and Jason's choice of "The Romans" (which I too thought was a strong contender!) and mine and Mark's choice of "The Time Meddler"!

Season 3 was possibly the weaker season of the 3 but there was a clear winner - "The Dalek Master Plan" was voted for by all of us - except Jason who preferred "The Ark" (oh Gavin liked "The War Machines" but that might be because he only watched a couple with us!).

As Season 4 had only just started it's a bit unfair to vote just between two stories (though "The Tenth Planet" would win!).

Photo 6: Three Jelly Babies pose in front of my
TARDIS key ring around Jason's house.
One has been killed since the last photo!

We then voted pitched our overall winner and surprisingly the (mostly missing) 12 part epic "The Daleks Master Plan" won - voted by all except Jim and Jason who liked "The Keys Of Marinus" best - and why not!

So that's Hartnell.  Thank you, you were a fun Doctor to watch and, even with the fluffs, you were amusing and interesting to watch.  Plus you were the first it was down to you to pull it off and make it a success.  Well done you!

Next time we meet we shall watch the drama based on Hartnell's time on the show "An Adventure in Space and Time" before continuing with Season 4 in the shape of a Mr. Patrick Troughton.  We'd better start getting used to re-cons....!

But until then I shall return, yes, I shall return...

MJ 12-01-15