Series 1 Episode 38: Guests of Madame Guillotine

Serial: The Reign of Terror
Episode: 2 (Guests of Madame Guillotine)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Dennis Spooner
Director: Henric Hirsch
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 15/08/1964

WHERE'S THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNING FOR LIFE? (and other stories)

In which Susan gives up, Babs is propositioned for sex in a Parisian jail, Ian gets himself involved in an English spy ring, and the Doctor commits murder (probably).

And we begin with NO RESOLUTION to the whole ‘the Doctor is about to be roasted alive in a burning house’ predicament, just a recap before we’re taken to ‘PARIS’ via a handy, captioned cityscape and FOOTAGE OF A GUILLOTINE GUILLOTINING. I kind of wish I hadn’t wasted the ‘Madame Guillotine’ song from The Scarlet Pimpernel on last week’s episode now. Though I've decided this week's WTF theme tune is 'Where's the Girl', as it combines a lament for a lost 'renegade heart' (Susan) and the creepy, sexually-predatory overtones of Barbara's jailbird fate this week.

Anyway, we’re now at the ‘CONCIERGERIE PRISON’ (or so the sign tells us), where assorted crones (tricoteuses?) are chuckling with their knitting outside the gates. Inside, Babs is trying to sort shit out with the presiding official, asking whether they’ll be allowed to tell their story; they won’t. Said official is satisfied of their guilt of being in the company of traitors; the sentence is…DEATH! And oh gosh the camerawork that’s meant to fool us into believing William Russell isn’t on holiday is hilarious: only Barbara and Susan are in shot, and then they cut away to Ian looking grim against a curtain before cutting back to Babs et al. Slow hand clap.

Russ just wants to be in Shagaluf already.

Glorious Babs DEMANDS the right to speak (hurrah!) only to be told she has no rights (BOOO!) and that they’re all going to be guillotined; the official orders that they be taken to the cells, and points his scrunchily-unforgiving face towards the camera.

In the prison, there’s more hilarious pretending William Russell is there, as we are led to believe he’s already been slung into a cell thanks to Susan yelling ‘IAN!’ and flinging herself at the door behind which he is apparently refusing to stay back by the wall. Oh BBC, you missed a trick by not recording him yelling back.

Susan is bundled out of shot while the lumpy jailer (who has a comedy northern accent because he's working class and those are the Rules of the Beeb) takes Barbara to one side. And OH GOD NO, he basically tells Babs she’ll get preferential treatment in return for sexual favours, only this is a kids’ show and it’s all done through innuendo. That is…horrifying. Barbara, unfortunately, has dealt with far worse (I’m looking at YOU, Vasor, you appalling would-be rapist...Ye Gods did that actually happen?), and merely looks mildly embarrassed for him. Until the point at which he straight up propositions her and she gives him a look of white-hot rage AND SMACKS HIM IN THE FACE. DAMN RIGHT, BABS. Still, I can’t quite believe what I've just witnessed. Or that Babs is getting leched-on so regularly that it's now old hat. Or that she's that polite to this particular lech for that long. Seriously, though, we wonder why we have rape culture and a society where women are expected to deal with this kind of bollocks on a regular basis and be pleasant to arseholes like this until the last possible moment.

Anyway, in return for refusing to trade her body for a less revolting cell, Babs gets to be locked up with Susan in the shittiest cell of them all. Susan observes that the smell is godawful; Babs says it reminds her of when they were prisoners before in prehistoric times; Susan says there’s an important difference, which is that the Doctor and Ian were with them, then. EXCUSE ME, SUSAN, LET’S HAVE LESS OF THAT. Who was it who came up with the whole Flaming Skull thing in the first place, eh? You did, you morbid little weirdo. And Babs was having a bad day then, and wasn’t her usual enterprising self, so of course she was…er...mostly useless. But who took out the Daleks with mud pies? Barbara. Who came up with the thought transference plan on the Sense Sphere? Barbara. And who came up with taking out the Sensorites by thinking defiant thoughts? You did! Together, you are kickass women who very often don’t need no man; don’t be a party pooper.

And oh, she heard me, apparently, because now she reckons knowing where they are might help, so she asks Barbara to lift her up so she can see through the bars because she’s a short-arse. Which Barbara does. And it’s inexplicably endearing. Nothing doing, though, and soon Susan is (understandably) wishing she knew what had happened to her Grandfather; Barbara, who seems to be in practical optimism mode, is sure he made it out of the house.

I know Susan is tiny, but this is still impressive.

Well it looks like we’re about to find out, because here’s the Doctor a-coughing and a-spluttering and being revived by the urchin boy from last episode! Hurrah for discount Gavroche! (Yes, yes, I know it’s the wrong revolution, pipe down.) And OH CUE GUSHING the newly-revived Doctor has the following burning question for his urchin saviour: ‘Where are my friends?’

I mean the fact that he chooses this term when his granddaughter is among the missing is a bit odd, but oh for all his blather about dumping the humans in the next place the Tardis lands, it seems friendship has indeed taken hold. Gavroche (or whatever his name is) tells him his crew is about to join the headless hunt, at which point the Doctor calls him ‘a very brave boy’, can’t begin to thank him enough, and determines to rescue his friends. Gavroche is woodenly horrified but the Doctor tells him he rescued him so now the Doctor must rescue them; Gavroche wants to come with him, but has to look after his mum. Oh and his name is Jean-Pierre. He bids him farewell with a cute little salute and yeah the surprising rapport with kids is a joy to behold.

So now the Doctor (or his body double, rather) goes strolling across the fields to Paris.

Back at the prison, Babs and Susan are feigning sleep when the jailer looks in on them. Babs is raring to get their escape on, but Susan is being a real downer:

SUSAN: Oh, what's the use? We'll never get out of this dreadful place.
BARBARA: Oh, you mustn't lose heart, Susan.
SUSAN: I'm not going to fool myself.
BARBARA: Well, think of the times we've been in trouble before. We've always managed to get out of it in the end.
SUSAN: Oh, we've been lucky. We can't go on being lucky. Things catch up with you.
BARBARA: I've never heard you talk like this before. You're usually so optimistic.

Blimey. Seems like Susan’s finally reached the end of her tether. Everyone’s allowed a low point, and everyone gets to despair, and Susan does have the added worry of not knowing whether her grandfather is alive or dead, but the way this pans out dramatically annoys me because Susan is basically there to poor cold water on Barbara’s escape plans by being negative and not helping so that the serial isn’t over in five minutes. Which, as I say, bugs me.

Anyway, Babs continues to show gumption enough for two, observing that there have been times when they’ve made their own luck, and hatching a plan to crowbar her way out of the cell and into the sewers using planks of wood from the bed. You have GOT to admire this woman. Sensing that her cellmate is currently about as much use as a chocolate teapot, she steers Susan bodily into a corner like a shop dummy on wheels and tells her to look out for the guards while she continues to tear the bed apart with her bare hands.

Nobody puts baby in a corner. Except Barbara.

Meanwhile, there are groans coming from Ian’s cell; the jailer tells the moaner to shut up or he’ll give the place a bad name. Inside the cell, it transpires it’s not Ian who’s getting vocal but rather his cellmate Webster, who’s busy dying of a gunshot wound. Ian has apparently been dividing his time between tending Webster and hatching escape plans. He’s really rather sweet with his bedside manner.

At any rate, Webster’s not getting out of there alive, and he appeals to Ian as a fellow Englishman (how does he know?) to promise to go and find an English guy called John Stirling (can’t get a more Englishy surname than that) who has information that will be useful in the event of an English war with France, which is...imminent? Ongoing? I genuinely can't be arsed to look it up. Anyhoo, Ian can hardly refuse a guy who is quite literally dying in his arms, and promises; Webster tells him to find a guy called Jules Renan at the sign of Le Chien Gris, and then dies. Ian is left to cover up the corpse.

Goodnight, sweet...Thingummy...

I’m always interested to see the extent to which the humans in particular think of their travels as actually real, especially when they’re stranded in their own planet’s history. Post-Aztecs Barbara seems to have developed a kind of positive fatalism, whereby she assumes that everything has always already happened so everything will more or less work out if they manage to keep their heads above water long enough not to be murdered, and seems to have sworn off getting involved with the politics; Ian, however, is about to find himself embroiled in some sort of English Secret Service subplot purely because he wants to honour the wishes of a dying man who, from his temporal point of view, has already been dead for more than a century.

Anyway, the Doctor (or his body double) is still strolling along country roads that actually look quite French to me, so well done, location people. He comes across a group of tax-dodgers digging a road under the supervision of a bullying boss, and stops to ask directions to Paris…and to sass the bully in question:

DOCTOR: I'm sure you're very experienced at this job, my man. But, as an impartial onlooker I think I might have a bit of an advice to give you.
OVERSEER: Well, I'll listen to anything that'll get this job finished quickly.
DOCTOR: Well, if you were to expend your energy helping with the road, instead of bawling and shouting at them every few seconds, you might be able to get somewhere. Good day to you, sir!

Alas this isn’t quite the mic-drop moment he’d hoped for: the overseer asks him for papers he doesn’t have, and when it becomes apparent that the Doctor hasn’t payed his taxes either, the overseer hands him a pick and sets him to work at gunpoint. And refers to him as ‘skinny’. Oh Doctor, you do pick your battles, don’t you?

Back in the cells, Babs is also putting her back into some manual labour and needs a breather. Her hands are torn to pieces, and Susan’s are worse, but she wants to take over from Babs to take her mind off things. Attagirl, Susan. But oh, it really hurts her hands, so Babs steers her back over to the bed where they sit and rest and look bloody knackered but are also rather pleased with themselves for having made progress. My proactive darlings, I salute you.

Someone’s coming, and Babs hastily covers the hole they’ve made with a blanket; Susan thinks their time’s up, but it’s only the jailer come with food. He spots the blankets and is having none of Babs’s ‘wot me guv’ routine; he nearly rumbles them but just as he’s about to pick the blankets up (revealing the hole they’ve been digging), the jailer is called away by some bigwig called Lemaitre; Babs and Susan cuddle to express their relief.

I will never not gif Babara smiling.

Meanwhile, Ian is staring at the bars to relieve the tedium of sharing a cell with a corpse, while Lemaitre examines said deado. He asks Ian how long Webster’s been dead, and when Ian doesn’t answer he pins him up against the wall by the throat. Ian is so done by this point he merely looks at his attacker in bored condescension as he answers his questions, taking care to sass him by calling him ‘citizen’ in a pointed manner. Lemaitre asks Ian whether Webster spoke; Ian lies to his face and says he didn’t. I’m a bit concerned for Ian these days, or maybe it’s just the old Chestertonian thing of not quite being himself when he’s not welded to the side of the Bae. At any rate, he’s looking grimmer and more detached than ever…which could have something to do with the fact that he’s just watched a man die, or indeed the fact that this mostly left-leaning character is on the wrong side of the French Revolution. In fact, Ian allying himself with the aristocracy for this serial strikes an odd note.

Anyway, Lemaitre is asking the jailer whether he heard Ian and Webster talking; the jailers says they did but not for long. Lemaitre decides to take Ian off the execution list…I think? Well, he crosses somebody’s name off the list, anyway. Could be the dead guy. Either way, looks like interesting times for Ian and his new frenemy.

#sorrynotsorry

Back in Susan and Barbara’s cell, our faves are reflecting on their lucky escape; Babs is cheerily musing on the wonders of the kind of slop you’ll eat when you’re hungry; Susan makes a bleurgh-type noise, allows her slop to splodge from the spoon, and puts her food down. EAT YOUR FOOD, SUSAN. Anyway, they get back to work; Babs says it’s her turn, but Susan wants a go until…EEK! IT’S RATS!

Ah, the sixties. Because there isn’t a table to hand, Susan immediately leaps onto the bed, shrieking. I mean…fair enough, I suppose. I’d probably jump if I lifted up a blanket and there were rats under it. Babs hops to it and blocks up the hole again, and Susan has had just about enough. She says she can’t go on with their escape attempt with all those rats down there…AND BARBARA JUST AGREES TO GIVE UP!?!? WHAT. THE. FUCK. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. She literally says ‘we’ll just stay where we are’, which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I appreciate that they’re at the end of their tether, but why the hell is she indulging Susan to the extent that she agrees to SIT THERE AND WAIT FOR DEATH? It’s ludicrously out of character and my blood is pretty-much boiling at the thought that the writers expected people to swallow this out-of-character nonsense because ladies are scared of rats and would literally rather die than be confronted with them ever again. I repeat: when confronted with the choice between death or rats, they choose death. I WILL CLEAR THIS PLACE.

Barbara accepts death.

(Though...hang about. Having said that this is out of character for both Barbara and Susan, I am now reminded of that time on Skaro when Babs was willing to stay and wait for death with Ian who was trapped in some Dalek casing. Which is a disturbing trend.)

Back on the road, the Doctor is still digging with the tax dodgers. Noticing that the overseer is counting his money and is therefore a greedy bastard, the Doctor hatches a plan and tells his new pals to run with it. And it’s fucking silly but I fucking love it. His plan is to yell in excitement until the overseer comes running and then go OH LOOK IT’S AN ECLIPSE. I’m deaded. (Though the infotext suggests this is not as random as it seems, as apparently there was a partial eclipse over Paris on 31 January 1794. Well then.) While the overseer is looking for the non-existent eclipse, the Doctor picks his pocket; when the overseer goes back to counting his coins, the Doctor pretends to have found a coin in the dirt. The overseer starts digging for himself and doesn’t want anyone else to help because it’s his, his own, his precious; while the overseer is busy, the Doctor MURDERS HIM WITH A SPADE. THE FUCK...!? It seems the stone-wielding Doctor from An Unearthly Child is still alive and kicking.

But oh wait! Phew! It seems the freshly-felled overseer is snoring. I mean, the Doctor has put coins on his eyes like on a dead person, and the infotext tells me the snoring and the Doctor saying ‘pleasant dreams’ were unscripted ad libs (implying that the Doctor does actually kill him in the script), but he’s alive when the Doctor leaves him, which is a small mercy. Also, I now want a version of The Princess Bride in which William Hartnell is Wesley.

Just...y'know...gleefully battering a man to death.

And so the Doctor goes on his merry way along French-looking country lanes, and is now only 5km from Paris.

Back in the cells, Susan is sleeping on Babs when the jailer tells them to get out and get in line; Susan asks where Ian is; the jailer tells her he was lucky because Lemaitre crossed him off the list. So that did happen. And OH SHIT they’re being dispatched for the guillotine!

Back in Ian’s cell, Ian hears the hullaballoo outside, and looks through the bars; horrorstruck, he realises his fellow travellers are for the chop.

Ian reverts to his factory settings.

MON DIEU! HOW WILL BARBARA AND SUSAN GET OUT OF THIS ONE? WILL IAN HULK HIS WAY OUT? WILL THE DOCTOR DEVELOP MO FARAH-LIKE SPEED ACROSS THE 5K? WILL SUSAN FIND HER GUMPTION AND GO ALONG WITH BARBARA’S NEXT ESCAPE PLAN WITHOUT GIVING UP AT THE FIRST SIGN OF INTERFERENCE FROM RODENTS? WHAT MANNER OF DEUS EX MACHINA IS WAITING IN THE WINGS TO GET US OUT OF THIS CLIFFHANGER OF ALL CLIFFHANGERS?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Hurdles it.

Is the gaze problematic? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? No. Though Susan and Barbara finally get to show a bit of clavicle. Scandalous.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? No running this week.

Does a woman wander off alone for the sole dramatic purpose of getting into trouble so she can be rescued later? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? Everyone is captured.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? The Doctor seems to be on a one-man mission to save his Crew, but he spends most of the episode pissing about with shovels, and Ian's locked up, so Babs and Susan have to save themselves YET ARE PREVENTED FROM DOING SO BY BULLSHIT WRITING INVOLVING RATS AND UNCHARACTERISTIC PESSIMISM.

Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Yup. Everyone is. Plus Babs is propositioned.

Does a woman have to deal with a sexual predator? Yup. Yuck.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? No.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? Susan is stereotypically hysterical about the rats, though she has had a rough day.

Is a woman 'spared' the ordeal of having to do/witness something unpleasant by a man who makes a decision on her behalf/keeps her deliberately ignorant? No. Though Babs seems willing to let Susan die rather than allow for the possibility of her Space Daughter encountering any more rodents.

Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? Not really applicable this episode as the women are in their own cell this week.

Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? No.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? No, but Susan has to be cuddled and comforted by Babs a lot.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? I'll say. Ian gets crossed off the death list, and the Doctor is out and about murdering people with shovels, while Babs and Susan are carted off to get beheaded at the end of the episode.

Is a man shamed into doing/not doing something because the alternative is a woman doing/not doing something? No.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? Barbara comes up with an escape plan but Susan pours cold water on it at every opportunity; when she finally gets on board, the plan is scuppered by rats.

Does the woman companion do something stupid/banal/weird which inspires a man to be a Man with a Plan? No.

Does a woman come up with a theory and is it ridiculed by the Doctor/a man? N/A.

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? N/A.

Does a woman get to be a badass? Barbara gets to slap the jailer when he propositions her for sex and she is generally kickass about tearing a bed apart with her bare hands and trying to dig her way out of the cell.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Not really.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? PROPOSITIONING BARBARA FOR SEX IN EXCHANGE FOR PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT IN JAIL.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? Barbara smacks him in the gob.

Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? Yes and no. See above.

Did a woman write/direct/produce this episode? No/No/Yes.

Verdict

A seriously mixed bag this week. While I appreciate the fact that Babs gives the jailer a good hard slap, I'd rather she weren't propositioned on the first place; it's really not ok. Then she gets to be a positive, proactive force (and indeed pull some fantastic faces) when she's trying her damnedest to escape, but ultimately gives up and accepts death because Susan's having a pessimistic moment. Susan is clearly worried about her grandfather and on a bit of a downer because she's in very real danger of being guillotined. I appreciate that there is actually dialogue in which Barbara comments on how unusual this is for Susan, and it is interesting at least to see her at a low ebb, but I flat out refuse to believe that Susan Foreman would choose death over rats, or that Barbara would ever let her do such a thing. It's lazy, sexist writing that's only there to throw a spanner in their escape plans to spin out the plot and could have been avoided easily by simply having them run out of time, which is entirely believable, as I reckon it would take bloody ages to crowbar your way out of a stone prison cell with a plank of wood, and you probably would be taken away to be executed before you finished the job. Ian is a bit out of sorts, too, and seems to have forgotten all about his fellow travellers until he sees them being led to the guillotine. Now he's somewhat recklessly throwing in his lot with eighteenth-century MI6 just for the hell of it. Plus, as I say, it's odd that he's on the side of the aristocracy in this serial as he's generally the leftier of the humans. Meanwhile, the Doctor is having a whale of a time murdering the locals. A few hours away from the mellowing influence of his granddaughter and the humans and he's already whacking people with spades with gay abandon. The man is a menace. Let's hope Susan finds her mojo next week, and that the Team is reunited soon (but not at the expense of Barbara's proactive badassery).

Series 1 Episode 37: A Land of Fear

Serial: The Reign of Terror
Episode: 1 (A Land of Fear)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Dennis Spooner
Director: Henric Hirsch
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 08/08/1964

INTO THE FIRE (and other stories)

In which Team Tardis plays dressup, the humans aren't ready to go home just yet, Susan still doesn't like goodbyes, people get shot onscreen and off, and the Doctor is out of the frying pan.

Time for adventures new! Or old, as the case may be. And the full-size Tardis prop has just materialised for the first time ever onscreen (thank you, infotext) in a forest of some sort.

Inside the Tardis, it’s frosty as hell: the Doctor, piqued by Ian having pointed out that the Tardis is basically out of control, is calling his bluff and about to dump him and a stunned-looking Babs wherever it is they’ve landed. I can’t work out whether the Doctor is serious or not, which is one of the reasons I love One.

Anyway, he tells Susan to say her goodbyes and make it snappy because he’s got the universe to explore. Well, Susan just LOVES goodbyes, so this shouldn’t traumatise her at all.

Babs takes it all in her stride, and tells Susan that one day she’ll understand why they always intended to return home when they could. Which is…cryptic. Seeing as how Susan definitely understands what it’s like to be homesick. Ian clarifies things somewhat, telling Susan that ‘the longer we leave it, the harder it will be’. Which is gorgeous character development for these two and the flip side of their ‘hey TEAM look how much we’ve all changed’ moment from the beginning of the last serial; it’s the first intimation we’ve had that they realise how difficult it will be to live normal lives after having been wanderers in the fourth dimension.

Also I need to take a moment to process what the infotext is telling me which is that ‘[u]nbeknown to the actors, at this point the production team was considering dropping both Susan and Barbara from the series’. I think if they’d married Barbara off, too, I would have set fire to the BBC.

Anyway, Susan can’t deal, so she flings herself on each of her earth-teacher-space-parents in turn and runs off to her room, presumably to sit and make creepy hexagonal Rorschach texts whilst listening to sixties pop music like she did in the unaired pilot…which I realise I have never fully addressed.

When you realise your Space Child has Issues.

Anyway, the Doctor is still playing it cool, asking them why they’re still here whilst doing a spot of casual reading. Ian gives Babs a look and tells the Doctor they’re waiting for him to carry out the checks. Which is understandable, as they are probably definitely not in 1963. The Doctor shows them some foliage on the screen; they remain sceptical; the Doctor shows them a larger view. Barbara gets excited and has a wistful moment where she says it reminds her of a holiday she once took in Somerset; the Doctor reckons that’s because it probably is Somerset. It’s definitely not Somerset.

Anyway, Ian reckons it’d be better if the Doctor came with them ‘at least to explore’; the Doctor refuses; Ian brings up that time when he took them home before and Babs chips in about Marco Polo; they laugh, but the Doctor insists that he is master of his own craft (as it were).

At this point, flattery kicks in, and the humans are shameless. The upshot is, Ian humours him about being in control (which he isn’t), and says that in case they don’t in fact meet again because the Doctor is super busy (lost somewhere in time and space) they ought to part on friendlier terms over a drink. Basically they persuade him to come to the pub.

When the Doctor tells Susan he’s going to see Ian and Barbara home safely she’s beside herself with joy and I can’t stand it. Also the humans are very cute. I would object and say that Barbara being all ‘well done, Ian’ is out of character as Babs is usually the Doctor-whisperer, but hey, Ian had to hone his skills somehow.

Outside, the team ascertains that it’s hot and rural with very few lights at dusk; Susan asks Ian why this is, and Babs cuts in on his bullshitting by observing that towns can be well spaced-out even in England. Apparently the Doctor just wants to get to the pub because he’s chivvying them along but OH Susan has tensed up and Ian has spotted the danger, too. What could it be? The Doctor reckons it’s a rabbit and rather nastily I think observes how jumpy Chesterton is getting these days and how a young man like that shouldn’t suffer from nerves. Take your toxic masculinity and shove it up your arse, Doctor.

Ian returns from the bushes with a fighty urchin; Babs protests that Ian’s hurting him, but Ian begs to differ, and yeah actually he’s just got him by the shirt. The Doctor wants to know what this kid is about but Susan chides him for being scary and tells the boy they’re his friends because of course Susan wants to be friends with everyone because she’s the loneliest kid in the universe.

The kid in question appears to have trouble standing upright and remains bent forwards like it’s a Standard Acting Stance for Frightened Urchins. Anyway, he tells them they’re in France, about 12 kilometres from Paris. The Doctor is pretty impressed with only being 100 miles out; Ian reckons distance might not be their only error.

Anyway, the Doctor wants to question the kid further, but said kid has had enough and SHOVES IAN BODILY TO THE GROUND and escapes. ‘We’ve lost him,’ observes Ian, flat on his arse. Susan wonders aloud why he was so afraid, tapping her chin with some foliage as though relishing the thought.

Meanwhile, in some sort of farmhouse, the kid is returning to do…whatever it is he does.

Then something unprecedented (maybe?) happens: the Doctor points out the house to Chesterton, who immediately asks ‘what do you make of it, Barbara?’ – WONDERS WILL NEVER CEASE. Whether or not this has happened before, it’s a welcome change from people automatically asking Ian what’s going on when he has Not A Clue.

Anyway, Babs reckons its deserted, but more importantly is ‘certain we’re some time in the past’. Which is hilariously unspecific, but yeah you go Babs with your historical knowledge. Ian suggests they may be a hundred years out as well as a hundred miles and reckons they ought to get back to the ship while they still can; the Doctor is having none of it and points out it was Ian’s idea to explore in the first place; he and Susan wander on ahead.

I like that Ian gets to have these cautious moments, and it’s interesting that the humans are usually a lot more anxious about exploring their own planet’s history than they are about exploring new planets. It’s like the absolutely alien is a safety-blanket insofar as they can just go with the flow because they have that detachment; knowing you’re in a particularly bloody period of Earth history, however, is a different kettle of fish because you have more of an idea of the worst that can happen.

Anyway, left alone in the shrubbery, the humans get to have a moment:

But really they are utterly, utterly gorgeous. I cannot express how much I enjoy all those tiny gems of conversations between the various members of Team Tardis that are scattered throughout the episodes. (Also can we just take a moment to mourn the lostness of Marco Polo? Because there are some great character development chats in that serial and I refuse to stop going on about them.) I think it’s one of the biggest losses to come out of abandoning the twenty-five-minute format: the fast-paced, forty-five-minute New Who episodes don’t often allow for quiet moments like this, and when they do give the characters time to talk, it’s always got this dramatic weight attached, and there’s often a lot of pressure on a scene in which there’s all talk and no action to justify a break from said action. I should emphasise that I’m not in any way a New Who hater—quite the opposite, in fact—and I’m aware (given what I’m about to say) of the irony of my drawing attention to this exchange in order to emphasise its significance; all I want to stress is how much I love the almost throwaway quality of these key character development moments, and how insignificant to the immediate action they are. And here of course (thank you, infotext) it’s integral to the filming process that we get this breathing space: in order for everyone to run over to the next bit of the set without a break in filming, two of the actors have to stay behind for a generous thirty seconds of character development while the rest of the cast gets ready to film on the other side of the studio. We get to see the humans ‘linger in the forest’ (no, really, thank you, infotext) to skirt around the edges of their being secretly glad not to be done with their adventures just yet, and it’s all thanks to the limitations of ‘as live’ filming in the 1960s at the Beeb.

I beg to differ, Susan. I beg to differ.

Moving on from my love-letter to the twenty-five-minute format, the Doctor and Susan are exploring the farmyard. The camera bumps into a barrel, and nobody can see what’s inside the house because it’s dark and that, and Ian’s monologue on how the place is uninhabited is cut short by the realisation that the Doctor has given up listening and found the door (which is unlocked). Maudlin! Ian and Intrepid! Doctor are a match made in heaven.

The Doctor tells Ian to take the West side search downstairs while he takes the East side searches upstairs, and scuttles off with a candlestick. Ian, however, is more interested in examining his own candlestick than exploring, and gives it to Barbara for a second opinion. (In related news, I have a new headcanon involving these two and Antiques Roadshow.) Short answer: she doesn’t know what a candlestick like that is doing in a place like this. Maybe they’ve landed on Planet Cluedo.

And OH DRESSUP TIME: Susan’s found some clothes! Which Babs pronounces eighteenth-century, despite the fact that we can see their insides and the seams reek of rep theatre period drama costumes. She also notes they’re all different sizes, just in case we can’t believe they just happened to find clothes that fit. Because apparently Jacqueline Hill found this ‘unduly convenient’. (I’m switching off the infotext now because I’m getting way too distracted.)

They also find bottles of wine (Ian, your priorities are sound), stale bread, maps, daggers, and undated official documents which it turns out are passes of some sort. At this point, I refuse to believe that neither Barbara the historian nor Susan to whom she lent a book on the French Revolution hasn’t worked it out yet, but no, Barbara remains puzzled by the presence of such documents in a dusty, abandoned house. And ugh it’s Ian who deduces it’s a link in an escape chain, because apparently he is now the expert in such matters.

The farce continues: Babs draws Ian’s attention to the fact that her document is signed by Robespierre; Ian pooh-poohs this, checks his own document, realises she’s right, and the penny drops:

WELCOME TO THE PARTY, BABS. I mean kudos for accurately dating the Robespierre years as the Reign of Terror (roll credits) but Ian shouldn't have to spell it out for you like this. Either way, DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNNN.

Anyway, the Doctor is upstairs, sneaking as is his wont, when OH NO! He’s clouted around the back of the head by assailant or assailants unknown and falls unconscious! This seems to happen a lot to One.

Downstairs, the others have changed into their eighteenth-century costumes and are looking fab. Then Babs asks Ian how she looks and a fatal error is made:

Ian just signed himself up for a world of hair-related pain in the next historical.

Oh and then Susan drops this bombshell:

Suddenly the whole Morbid Susan thing makes absolute sense. Also, the Doctor wanting to smash the aristocracy but also wanting to look fabulous in an enormous hat and lording it over his fellow revolutionaries makes perfect sense given his as-yet-non-existent history with the Time Lords. Well, in my head anyway.

Anyway, Babs and Ian are unimpressed and resolve to go and find him when—GASP!—they find themselves face-to-face with some gunslinging French aristocrats. Susan and Ian try to explain that they’re only travellers taking a break, but the less twitchy of the French guys thinks…not: ‘When you entered our hideout, you entered our lives.’ JUNKYARD FLASHBACK MUCH.

So. Very. Done.

Babs tries lying when asked if they’re alone and is immediately called out, as it transpires it was these two wot pistol-whipped the Doctor. Susan is a terrier and wants to know what they’ve done with him, but Ian holds her back…with some unfortunate hand placement.

The two aristocrats tell the Team there are only two sides in France right now and that they’re either with them or against them. Babs steps up to the plate with a simple solution: they’re not even French, so they don’t have a side. Which is…probably inaccurate as there were plenty of English people who picked a side in this conflict. However, the less twitchy guy lowers his gun, telling them grimly they’ll probably have to pick a side before they leave. Which is probably true. Susan picks up where she left off, asking where her grandfather is and looking scrappy as hell, but Ian shushes them: noises off!

Sacré bleu! It’s the proles! One of whom is probably wearing the same eyepatch as Monkey Guy’s Doppelganger from Marco Polo. I wonder where our sympathies are meant to lie in this scene, she said sarcastically.

Twitchy Guy gets hysterical. There are a few bars of the Marseilleise and after some banter with eyepatch guy which I’m assuming is an ad lib because it’s pretty rapey (‘it’s been a long time since I had a royalist to myself’), they unveil their plan. Which is basically this:

Back in the house, Susan reminds Ian about the Doctor, and he goes upstairs to look for him. Twitchy Guy loses his nerve, bolts, and runs into the soldiers; Other Guy follows him and immediately tries to assert his authority over the proles, who are pretty obedient. He indulges in some classist gloating: ‘You can give them uniforms, Lieutenant, but they remain peasants underneath.’

So they shoot him. I’m not even kidding, they just…shoot him. And then shoot the other guy offscreen. Guns and violence on Doctor Who! Blimey.

Meanwhile, Ian is looking for the Doctor, who is behind the locked door he doesn’t try very hard to unlock. A scream from Susan sends him running, and he is captured along with the others. Ian tries to play the ‘we don’t even go here’ card but is silenced; the officer threatens to kill anyone who speaks without permission. Seeing as we’ve just seen two people shot, this is no idle threat. They are marched out into the courtyard; back in the house, the Doctor is stirring.

And OH MY GOODNESS outside it looks like our heroes are going to be murdered by a firing squad (and are being oddly impassive about it). Fortunately for them, the officer reckons they should take them to Paris for a reward or for proof or whatever reason it is that they should live to fight another episode. Though not for long, it seems, for they are destined for…MADAME GUILLOTINE!

(Friendly warning: I intend to reference this musical at least once every episode. And it will be melodramatic as all fuck.)

Why do they all look so resigned? Are they so blasé these days that they just assume they'll survive certain death, or have they become overnight fatalists?

Oh and at the last minute the officer has a brainwave and decides to burn the house down. Just because. And OH NO the plinky plonky music is telling us the Doctor is now in a spot of bother because obviously the house is now on fire and smoke is coming in through the door and nobody can hear him and IT’S JUST TOO MUCH.

As they trudge along, Susan asks Babs whether there’s any sign of the Doctor; Babs turns around and spots that THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE. Drama! And the model work actually isn’t bad. And nice flame effect lighting on their faces. Babs is sure he got out; Ian hopes so for all their sakes; and OH WHAT’S THIS? The little urchin has been eavesdropping in a bush! Surely he will rescue the now coughing and passing-out Doctor?

The roof of the model falls in, and the Doctor lies unconscious on the floor. CUE THE MARSEILLEISE!

ZUT ALORS, WILL THE DOCTOR BE BURNED ALIVE? WILL THE OTHERS BE GUILLOTINED? WILL WE MEET SOME SYMPATHETIC REVOLUTIONARIES? WILL THERE BE ANY EXPLANATION AS TO THE LACK OF A LANGUAGE BARRIER? WHERE IS THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL WHEN YOU NEED HIM?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Yup.

Is the gaze problematic? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? No. Though Susan and Barbara finally get to show a bit of clavicle. Scandalous.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? No.

Does a woman wander off alone for the sole dramatic purpose of getting into trouble so she can be rescued later? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? Everyone is captured.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? No. Also the Doctor is the most in need of rescuing right now.

Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Yup. Everyone is.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? No.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? No. Everyone is weirdly zen about the prospect of being murdered this week.

Is a woman 'spared' the ordeal of having to do/witness something unpleasant by a man who makes a decision on her behalf/keeps her deliberately ignorant? No.

Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? No, but Ian doesn't believe Barbara when she says the papers she's found have been signed by Robespierre.

Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? Not that I can recall.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? No.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? The Doctor is the most gratuitously menaced what with being smoked alive, but everyone's for the chop as of the cliffhanger.

Is a man shamed into doing/not doing something because the alternative is a woman doing/not doing something? No.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? No. Ian's buttering-up-the-Doctor plan is mostly his doing, though she helps with her winsome ways.

Does the woman companion do something stupid/banal/weird which inspires a man to be a Man with a Plan? No.

Does a woman come up with a theory and is it ridiculed by the Doctor/a man? Robespierre.

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? Not to his face, but everyone is done with his nonsense.

Does a woman get to be a badass? No.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Ian is mostly in control up until the revolutionaries turn up, when the guys with guns are most in control of the situation.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? Not especially.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? No.

Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? No.

Did a woman write/direct/produce this episode? No/No/Yes.

Verdict

Some lovely character development from the humans this week, who share a dawning awareness that a) they don't actually want to go home yet and b) the longer they travel, the harder it will be for them to go back home. And it's all thanks to not being able to make too many cuts in an episode. God bless budget restrictions. Ian gets to exercise caution, which is nice, and Barbara has a weird inability to recognise eighteenth-century France, which is...well, weird. Susan continues to have heartbreaking Issues about saying goodbye to people. Meanwhile, the Doctor is being reasonably objectionable, taking the piss out of Ian for being twitchy and being touchy as hell about his inability to pilot the Tardis, though William Hartnell does such a good job of portraying that underlying vanity of the character. One isn't always likeable, but you just can't take your eyes off him. Some interesting historical bits, too, with the unflatteringly mob-like revolutionaries set against the twitchy, arrogant aristos who go to their deaths with contempt on their lips. I hope we get a more complex picture in future episodes, though, as right now we're being steered towards sympathising with the nobility, which doesn't quite sit with what we know of Ian in particular. Also, let's have more Babs and Susan knowing stuff about history, please, seeing as one lends the other a book on this very period in the first ever episode of the show.

Series 1 Episode 36: A Desperate Venture

Serial: The Sensorites
Episode: 6 (A Desperate Venture)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Peter R. Newman
Director: Frank Cox
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 01/08/1964

Susan ForeDONE (and other stories)

In which Babs returns, Susan gets to stretch her telepathic legs a bit, and the Space Bros enjoy a brief stint as the Chuckle Brothers.

Finally, we arrive at the end of this desperate venture, fitting called ‘A  Desperate Venture’. Carol has been abducted by the New Second Elder and his Engineer henchman and she doesn’t know why. She is a bit magnificent, actually; they tell her to write a letter to ‘the man John’ and she replies stoutly ‘I certainly will not!’. The NSE tells Carol her party is divided, which apparently convinces her that she has to do what he says? Anyway, he tells her to write a letter saying she’s gone up to the spaceship. Otherwise the NSE will kill her. Apparently this will guarantee the success of all the NSE’s plans...because of reasons. Carol hands the NSE the note…which is spectacularly brief.

We cut to the letter being held by a different pair of hands altogether, and OH GLORY OF GLORIES IT’S BARBARA! BARBARA’S BACK! I AM INCOHERENT WITH JOY AT THIS SUDDEN INJECTION OF NO-NONSENSENESS INTO THE STORY. NEVER LEAVE AGAIN.

And she’s straight back on the case, inferring that whoever made Carol write the note had no idea she was coming down from the spaceship or they would’ve known Team Defiance (for this is what I shall call Barbara, Susan, and John, in honour of their time spent together in spaceship corridors) wouldn’t fall for the story. Anyway, Susan suspects the City Administrator, while John can’t work out why anyone would kidnap Carol. Then this happens:

BARBARA: I should think the why is fairly obvious, wouldn't you?
JOHN: No I don't think it is Barbara. We're on good terms with the first Elder, the Doctor's discovered an antidote for the poison and now he and Ian are tracking down the cause of the trouble.
BARBARA: Look, I've been away in the ship, so maybe I can see things more clearly, and I think we're being used by one of the Sensorites who wants to gain power.
SUSAN: You mean we're not just being attacked because we're from other planets?
BARBARA: No.

I have to admit I’m still in the dark as to the City Administrator’s (the New Second Elder’s) motives in kidnapping Carol and had to do a bit of Googling until I found the novelisation where Barbara elaborates and suggests that there might be a ransom note on the way or Carol might be used as a means of discrediting the humans and proving they’re the ones poisoning the water. However, she remains gloriously on the ball and I enjoy that she’s using the fact that she can see the bigger picture to try to make her companions see that this is about power and not just about xenophobia.

Enter the First Elder, who immediately seems to realise he’s talking to the boss, and tells Babs he had her brought down to the Sense Sphere because her friends expressed so much concern for her. Damn right. Anyway, Babs doesn’t hang about and asks the First Elder for help, seeing as how the Doctor and Ian are missing. The First Elder is reluctant to spill the beans, and stalls by marvelling at that quality of human beings that is concern for one another’s wellbeing, before letting on that he was asked not to let Susan know where the two men went. Susan has the following response:

Susan Foreman is done with your shit.

Babs shows him the letter, and John gets frustrated when the First Elder doesn’t believe a Sensorite could’ve kidnapped Carol; he gets shouty and is immediately chided for raising his voice by Babs. I have missed this. Susan points out that she smudged the ink with her thumb when she was given the letter, meaning it was still wet and therefore very recently-written when it was delivered, so Carol has to be nearby. The best bet seems to be the disintegrator room. Then the First Elder tells Team Defiance that the Space Bros have gone to the aqueduct; Susan is horrified and exasperated in equal measure, and I’m enjoying her general vibe of ‘my grandfather is such a fucking idiot’ in this scene. The First Elder tells them the Space Bros went with light and weapons and so can be in no danger. Famous last words.

And oh look, the Doctor and Ian have indeed discovered that their weapons are useless and that someone has been ‘jiggering around’ (an ad lib, apparently) with the map, plus they have no food and the water’s got deadly nightshade in it. A charming outlook indeed.

Meanwhile, Carol is hungry and thirsty and captured and pissed off about it. The Engineer stands around being racist for a bit while John opens the door behind his back and jumps him…but misses! The engineer grabs some sort of…I have no idea what it is, but it’s attached to a wire and if it touches Carol she dies, so obv John has to stop in his tracks. Then Carol—magnificent Carol—takes advantage of the Engineer’s racist gloating and PULLS THE PLUG OUT! Things start smoking, and John yells and the Engineer has to drop his whateveritis, and a warrior comes in to re-arrest the flown jailbird that is the Engineer. Carol and John hug.

Back in the palace thing, the First Elder and the City Administrator/Second Elder are talking about how terrible the Engineer is for being a horrible kidnapping criminal; subtly, the CA/SE asks whether he’s named his accomplice yet; he hasn’t. Luckily for him. Enter Susan and Barbara, just as the First Elder exclaims that if there’s one thing he can’t stand it’s accusation without clear proof, which the CA/SE reiterates pointedly; looks like Team Defiance will have to find some.

Anyway, Babs and Susan have apparently been interrogating the Engineer (!) and have ascertained that the Doctor and Ian have been sent off with duff maps and duff weapons; the First Elder assures them that the Sensorite responsible will die for this outrage and again responds to a practical crisis by getting all Emo about it…which goes down like a lead balloon with Babs in particular:

The CA/SE is scandalised by what he deems to be Barbara’s insolence, but Barbara gives zero fucks, telling the First Elder to figure out who his friends are and save them. I may just be reading into the faces of others my own happiness that Babs is back and kicking ass, but I love the fact that, at the point where the First Elder goes off on his Emo tangent, Susan automatically looks to Babs to get shit sorted. I adore these two.

This is basically the Golden Rule of Who.

Anyway, as you may have noticed, the First Elder doesn’t have a plan, so Babs comes up with one: get a proper map and find the Space Bros themselves with as much help as the First Elder can give; the CA/SE bangs on about his suspicions, the two women pull the most glorious faces, and then the First Elder, reasoning that the Doctor (to whom he refers as a human being) has put his life in danger for the Sensorite nation, so he’ll help as much as he can. Sorted.

Back in the aqueduct, Ian is tempting fate by observing that whatever’s out there hasn’t attacked them yet…at which point the beastly moaning starts up again. The Doctor tells Ian ‘courage, my boy—both hands’, which is perplexing, but hey Ian seems to dig it. Ian spots something moving slightly up ahead of them, at which point one of my favourite things in the episode occurs: the Doctor rolls up the map like a baton and hands it to Ian in what I can only assume is an attempt to arm his Space Bro, and he looks stupidly pleased with himself and I’m just dying. What the flying flange do you expect Ian to do with a rolled-up paper, Doctor? Swat some bluebottles? Use it as a telescope to see ahead? Use it to poke things? I have no idea. But bless him, he goes for it.

And oh it seems to work sort of because a raggedy guy emerges from the darkness, grabbing at Ian (or rather the outstretched map); they grapple and the man gets away. But ooh look! Ian’s grabbed a badge off his attacker—a badge which reads ‘INEER’ but which Billy reads as ‘INNER’, and which presumably refers to the rank of ‘ENGINEER’ ; they’re some of the surviving humans from the exploding spaceship! And they’ve been poisoning the water! Why? Ian may ask but the Doctor doesn’t know, so they’re away to ask the trampy engineer.

Meanwhile, back in the city, Babs is looking at a model city and has come up with a plan:

BARBARA: Tell me, can I use one of your mind-transmitters?
FIRST-ELDER: You have my permission to try. But how will it help you?

Oh my god the look Susan gives her is fantastic.

Me too, Susan.

Because of course Babs knows Susan’s a budding telepath and Susan is clearly itching to stretch herself a bit and she can see where this is going.

So Barbara’s plan is that she and John will go to look for Ian and the Doctor while Susan gives them telepathic instructions from the map room and guides them out! Brilliant! Susan doesn’t need a transmitter because she’s super gifted and all that, but Babs does, so they give it a test run and they’re both ever-so pleased with themselves when it works. There being no time like the present, Babs hops to it, pausing only to tell the First Elder to make sure there’s a trustworthy warrior left with her girl. And Carol’s going to help Susan, too! GO TEAM DEFIANCE!

And it seems I’m not the only one gushing over Babs this week, as the First Elder seems rather taken with her, too:

FIRST-ELDER: A very capable human being.
SUSAN: Yes, she is.
FIRST-ELDER: Gentle, yet with strong determination and courage.

Susan’s fierce pride in her friend is everything.

She and the First Elder talk about the wisdom of trusting implicitly for a bit, which is a bit sad as Susan at her age shouldn’t be the one saying impossibly tragic things like responding to the First Elder’s statement that the Sensorite’s whole way of life is based on trust by worrying that it might be their ‘downfall’. And when the First Sensorite muses that he and his people clearly have much to learn from the people of Earth, something unutterably gorgeous happens: Susan talks about her home.

Gifs by cleowho

EXCEPT YOU WON'T, SUSAN. *SOB*

It has only just occurred to me, what with this description being echoed in Gridlock, how much like his granddaughter Ten is. And that gives me all the feels. Also I just listened to ‘This Is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home’ for the first time in years and for the love of all that’s holy how long will it take for the Doctor to talk about Susan in any great detail in Capaldi-era Who?

Anyway, back to business: the Doctor is vandalising the set so that he and Ian won’t end up going round in circles, and the Doctor seems highly amused at the thought that the humans might be preparing an ambush:

Gifs by cleowho

Indeed he’s happy as a pig in shite, and is so merry burbling away about collecting evidence, calculating it, and pursuing to its inevitable end that he totally ignores the very important thing Ian is trying to tell him, which is that a beard guy with a sharpened stake is advancing on them from Ian’s end of the tunnel…that is until the Doctor spots a guy with a sharpened stake facing him at his end of the tunnel. A delightful bit of business follows, where the Doctor and Ian are clearly unaware that they are each facing an opponent and try to back up the passage so they can jump out at them…but of course they just back into one another and realise they’re surrounded. I laughed out loud. Their best bet is now to embrace this ambush situation and not do anything to alarm them. So they try to stay chill.

The stake-wielding tramps back them into some pipes and rasp that they’ve come at last; the Doctor improvs wildly and tells them that he and Ian came to find them; Ian plays along. The humans want to know whether the Sensorites are dead and whether the Space Bros have a spaceship; the Space Bros assure them that the latter at least is the case, assure them that they are alone, and wonder whether the trampy guys might want to pop out for a bit of sunshine; the trampy guys take the Space Bros to their leader.

Chesterchucklevision

Elsewhere in the tunnels, Babs is using the transmitter to speak to Susan but is a little indistinct; Carol suggests—in a neat budget-saving trick—that both women speak the words as they think them to make them clearer, which of course means no voiceovers and the like. Babs relays the directions to John and he leads them through the tunnels.

Meanwhile, the Space Bros are being marched to meet the leader of the Trampy Humans at stakepoint, and again have to swear they’re alone.

Except they’re not, because now Babara and The Man John (as the Sensorites call him) have spotted Ian’s scrunched-up fly-swatter and conjecture that the Space Bros chucked it once they realised it was all jiggered up; they decide to keep it because, as Babs points out, they need the tampered-with map as evidence against the CA/SE.

As the Space Bros are driven deeper into the caves, Susan keeps Carol and the First Elder abreast of the situation as Babs gets in touch to tell her she and John have found the Doctor’s trail of wanton set vandalism. So instead of Susan directing them, now Babs and Susan will be telling Susan where they’re going so Susan can keep track of them on the map. And it seems the Doctor is continuing to make the marks ‘in case we have to make a run for it, my dear boy’:

Gif by cleowho

Why is everyone so endearing this week?

Everyone in the map room is trying to work out what’s happened to Ian and the Doctor (with more finger-crossing from Susan), but we don’t have to wonder because we can see: they’re now meeting the Commander of the Beardy Colonials and he is both Colonial in accent and beardy of face (and looks a bit like Jeremy Irons). He’s also crazy and convinced he’s at war with the Sensorites. And it looks like we’ve found the poisoners.

Anyway, the Doctor and Ian are improvising like hell; the Doctor tells him the ‘war’ with the Sensorites is over; when the Commander asks whether the planet is now theirs completely, Ian assures them that it is so. So much smile-and-nod. The Commander goes on to tell the Space Bros about how he used to have a spaceship but two of his men deserted and pretended they had to go back to Earth for reinforcements so he blew up the spaceship, but he can get another one now because the planet is rich so he’ll be rich and yeah he’s completely bonkers.

But uh-oh, Ian’s let on he knows about the Molybdenum which makes the Commander jumpy and fighty, and to make things worse Babs and John (well, unspecified intruders) have been detected, which sends the Commander into a spiral of paranoia. He accuses them of being spies and is about to court martial them or something, but Ian cares less about this than the sudden appearance of none other than the Bestie herself! So sorry about that, Commander, but there’s very little in time or space can get in the way of their periodic reunions.

And oh glory, the Doctor is improvising again, telling the Beardy Colonials that the two extra humans are part of the welcoming committee; Barbara tries to elbow Ian and asks what’s going on, at which he rather hilariously mutters ‘play it cool’. Babs takes it in her stride, obv, and Ian tells them Barbara is their navigator who’s going to lead them back. Good save. Everyone moves out.

At the entrance to the aqueduct, the Sensorite warriors are lying in wait, and the humans are indeed apprehended. The Commander, however, does not come quietly but yells about treachery and is subsequently stunned by one of the Sensorites, who claims the moral high ground by not killing him. Right on. The Doctor reckons this shows great promise for the Sensorites’ future. Patronising sod.

Back at the palace, Barbara and Ian are tying up a few loose ends with the First Elder: Captain Maitland (where the hell has he been for the past three episodes?) is taking the stray humans home in his spaceship, the Second Elder is being banished to the outer wastes on the strength of the evidence of the jiggered map, and the humans probably mucked about with the transmitters or opened their minds until they went crazy and were left only with ‘the game they played—the game of war’. Very profound. But people died. Things that were not resolved include how the humans faked that beastie in the tunnels and mangled the Doctor’s frockcoat, but who cares, because the lock is back in the Tardis and they’re ready for off.

Back in the Tardis, Susan is sulking because she won’t be able to use telepathy away from the super-high frequencies or whatever it is on the Sense Sphere. Poor Susan. It was fun while it lasted. The Doctor, however, after an initial quip about nobody liking an eavesdropper, seems to have left his earlier douchebaggery behind and is actually being supportive for a change:

DOCTOR: I think you obviously have a gift in that direction and when we get home to our own place I think we should try and perfect it, mm?
SUSAN: When will we get back Grandfather?
DOCTOR: I don't know my dear, this old ship of mine seems to be an aimless thing. However, we don't worry about it do we? Do you?
SUSAN: Sometimes I feel I'd like to belong somewhere; not just be a wanderer...Still, I'm not unhappy.
DOCTOR: Good, good.

ONE DAY. ONE DAY WE SHALL KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THESE TWO.

Enter Babs and Ian, and the four of them watch Maitland et al take off in their ship. Ian wrecks the moment by making a quip about how the Doctor doesn’t know where the hell he’s going, which provokes a startling reaction from the Doctor: he flips out and tells Ian that if he’s so dissatisfied he can get the hell off his ship at the very next place they land. WOW, who shat in your porridge, Doctor? You literally just called your own ship aimless.

IS THE DOCTOR SERIOUS? WILL OUR HUMANS BE DUMPED IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE/NOWHEN BECAUSE THE DOCTOR LOST HIS TEMPER? WHY DID HE LOSE HIS TEMPER SO ABRUPTLY? IS THIS BECAUSE HE’S DECIDED HE WANTS TO GO BACK TO GALLIFREY WITH SUSAN SO HE NEEDS TO GET RID OF THE HUMANS SHARPISH? WHY IS MY SPACE FAMILY FALLING APART? WHERE WILL THEY LAND NEXT?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? With flying colours.

Is the gaze problematic? A bit lingering on Carol's kidnap face.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? No.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? No.

Does a woman wander off alone for the sole dramatic purpose of getting into trouble so she can be rescued later? Carol. Though as has been pointed out, the Doctor and Ian seem to have wandered off mostly so they can be rescued by the women and John. Though the main dramatic purpose of their desperate venture is meeting the poison colonials.

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? Carol.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? John gets pretty macho about rescuing Carol despite the fact that it's the women who work out she has to be nearby and Carol herself who pulls the plug on the laser with which she's about to be murdered, effectively saving herself from electric death only to stand around waiting for John to come and give her a cuddle.

Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Yup.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? No.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? No.

Is a woman 'spared' the ordeal of having to do/witness something unpleasant by a man who makes a decision on her behalf/keeps her deliberately ignorant? YES. And Susan is suitably exasperated.

Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? No.

Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? Not that I can recall.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? Carol needs a hug. Understandably.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? Carol. The Doctor and Ian get poked with sticks a bit, though.

Is a man shamed into doing/not doing something because the alternative is a woman doing/not doing something? No.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? YES. Barbara's plan with the though transference navigation is a cracker.

Does the woman companion do something stupid/banal/weird which inspires a man to be a Man with a Plan? No.

Does a woman come up with a theory and is it ridiculed by the Doctor/a man? No.

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? Not to his face, but Susan is pretty done with it this week.

Does a woman get to be a badass? Yes. Many women in many ways.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? I'd say Barbara is pretty on it this week.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? Not especially.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? No.

Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? The First Elder seems pretty taken with Babs, but in an emo way rather than a pervy way.

Did a woman write/direct/produce this episode? No/No/Yes.

Verdict

Barbara is back and all is right with the world. She gets to come up with an excellent plan, play with thought transference, and rescue the errant Space Bros from being lost in the dark with crazy colonial types. Even better, her return doesn't mean Susan gets sidelined but rather ensures that she gets lots of interesting stuff to do. However, it's enormously rubbish that Susan won't get to continue being a telepath after this week. No wonder Carole Ann Ford left. I also love that she gets to talk about Gallifrey and that her description here is carried forwards into New Who. As I mentioned earlier, I've had something of an epiphany this week as to how like his granddaughter Ten is, which makes me feel things. The Doctor and Ian get to have a bit of fun wandering about with rolled-up maps for weapons, and the Doctor finally gets to be supportive of Susan, though it does smack a little of placating her with promises of letting her fulfil her telepathic potential when they get home seeing as they will probably definitely never get home. Let's hope Susan gets lots of interesting stuff to do in the next historical to compensate for her loss of thought transference and doesn't end up being sidelined with a migraine for several episodes...