Doctor Who Rewind - The Tenth Planet

Four months ago, I had the bright idea of going back to the genesis of one of my favourite childhood tv programmes and seeing how it all started. 28 stories, 86 episodes and 30 odd reconstructions later I arrive at the final William Hartnell story, the second fourth season story, The Tenth Planet.

It's just been released on DVD, with the ambitious fourth episode animated, due to its continued loss from the BBC archives. So the timing of me reaching this point couldn't have been better.

I decide to make an event of the screening and put it on right bang in the heart of prime time Treadwell viewing, Saturday night just after tea time. Joining me on the sofa, my nearly five year old Doctor Who obsessed son Max, and my couldn't give a toss about DW wife.

The story takes place in 1986 at the South Pole Snowcap base, the control centre for the Zeus IV space mission ,which is placing a probe into Earth's atmosphere.

Power losses on the spaceship and unusual readings lead scientists to believe they have discovered a new planet which is getting closer and closer to the earth.

The Doctor reveals that he knows about this Tenth planet but no one wants to listen to him. How dare they.

Even when he rightly predicts what the planet looks like they still don't listen, putting the whole thing down to a cheap trick.

However, people start listening when, in through the hatch march a group of Cybermen. This is the first meeting of the Doctor and the robot cyborgs, and their design and look is a far cry from what we know today. They wear Silver foil like suits, with a big computerised box breast plate, a sock on their head with cut outs for eyes and mouth, a silver cap on their head with the distinctive handle bar design encompassing a super million candles power type torch. I think they've been down to my local B & Q.

If they weren't sold on conquering the Earth they could have got a very pleasant job as light house replacements!

I don't quite know what those light torches contain but they'll certainly blind you before killing you stone dead.

Now to the voice. The early edition Cybermen have a kind of singing drone voice, effectively slowing down the pronouncement of certain words and sounds so that they appear to be computer synthesised. What they actually sound like are very bad rappers. And with their blinging suits they even almost look the part.

The Cybermen explain that Earth once had a twin planet, called Mondas, that this planet evolved differently,
the humans on it gradually replacing their bodies with mechanical parts until completely made of machine, eliminating the need for the weakness of emotions.

Unfortunately Mondas is dying and the Cybermen need to sap the energy of the Earth in order to survive. And that's not all, unfortunately for the earthlings, the Cybermen will need to take them back to Mondas for conversion into, yes, you guessed it.

With the situation dire for humans, base commander Cutler, whose son is co-pilot of the orbiting space ship, takes full control, opting to fight the Cybermen and use the Z bomb (an atomic bomb) to destroy Mondas.

It's a cruel twist of fate that in his last adventure as the Doctor, a part he had made his own, Hartnell is taken ill with bronchitis and collapses during filming. He has to rest up while the rest of the cast take his lines as their own. His absence is felt during the next couple of episodes, as his illness isn't really explained in the story, instead he's laid up with some mysterious condition, seeming to be a side effect of the surprise conclusion coming at the end of the story.

Meanwhile, Ben and Polly are left perplexed and confused while the Cybermen go head to head with Cutler and the rest of the world.

Ben tries to sabotage the bomb but is discovered by Culter, who really is your typical all American gung-ho soldier. Luckily, when the countdown reaches zero, the bomb fails to launch.

By the time the Doctor arrives back on the scene Cutler is almost out of control and wants to kill the Doctor for preventing his sons rescue.

The Cybermen return to the station and kill Cutler. They demand the dismantling of the rocket with the bomb and take Polly as insurance that this is done. The Doctor goes with her.

The Doctor rightly surmises that the Cybermen intend to use the Z Bomb to destroy the Earth. Ben reaches a helpful conclusion that the Cybetmen can not survive in the radioactive atmosphere so refuse to work on the bomb.

Some radioactive reactor rods are used to expose the Cybermen to lethal doses of Radioactivity, therefore killing them and allowing Ben and the rest of the control room staff to retake the station.

More Cyberman arrive at the base but just then Mondas, weak and dying explodes, instantly killing them all.

Ben rushes to the Cyber ship and rescues Polly. The Doctor is acting strangely and when Ben tells him it's all over he mutters something about it being, far from over. As Hartnell delivers this line with great weight, we know something big is coming.

The Doctor rushes back to the TARDIS and by the time Ben and Polly get to the console room he is out for the count.

The transition from Hartnell to Troughton is seemless, and probably couldn't have been done better using modern technology. I wish I were one of those viewers back in the day watching this completely blind to what was coming. It must have been a magical surprise.

Worth mentioning here, the sets in this story are pretty impressive. The mock up exterior of the pole complete with fake snow, which according to the info in the DVD extras was a major pain in the arse and got just about everywhere. The interior of the base complete with computer screens, flashing thingy bobs and twisty knobs is fairly convincing too.

All in all you have to pay homage to this final story for its first introduction of a foe that keep on coming back time and time again. OK, so the these Cybermen are a little bit wishy washy than their present day counter parts, I mean, they even offer to give Ben a second chance when he fails to answer their ultimatum. And, let's be honest they sound a little bit gay when they open their sock covered mouths. But, their iconic relentless drive to delete, convert and duplicate has it origins in this very story.

Of course, the first regeneration is hugely significant as well, and seals the fate of Doctor Who's timelessness. It was a brave move, that paid off big time.

I remember that my Dad had told me a number of times that Hartnell was the best Doctor, but of course he would say that, as Hartnell was his first Doctor.

And now, having experienced, these first episodes, albeit in a restored cleaned up print, I can see why my Dad and the rest of the nation were so taken with his performance in this brave new tea time programme which burst onto the screens in 63, with such a strange character whom little was known about at the time.

I imagine that I too, if i'd been born then, would have been mesmerised by those grainy black and white images coming back through my tv screen, making me come back again and again.

And with a new younger active Doctor at the helm things were to go from strength to strengh. Yes, it's far from over.

Next time on Doctor Who Rewind, the second Doctor meets an old acquaintance.