Season 2 Episode 8: The Waking Ally

Serial: The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Episode: 5 (The Waking Ally)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Richard Martin
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 19/12/1964

‘TELL ME, YOUNG CRONE, IS THIS PUTNEY?’ (and other stories)


In which Terry Nation knocks it out of the park when it comes to post-apocalyptic world-building but phones in the fake science, crones are not to be trusted, Babs and Jenny continue to make me wish the latter had replaced Susan at the end of this serial, Babs is a woman with a plan, Ian is a bumbler, the Doctor is the matchmaker from hell, Susan engages in some fishy foreplay, and I invest way too much in a character I forgot wasn’t going to make it to the end of the episode.

Right, so where were we? And who is this waking ally? And what kind of ally are we talking about, here? Oh, right, we’d just met the Slyther. How embarrassing.

As it advances on Ian and Larry (have I mentioned that I love Larry?), the latter dives off the cliff and into one of the coal scuttle cable car things. Or rather he tries to, misses, hangs on to the edge of one, and yelps for Ian, who makes the jump successfully and helps him into the cart. The Slyther, however, does an Anakin and tries to follow them, but when it does, Ian hits it with a rock until it loses its grip and plummets to a chasmy doom with a rather pitiful whine.

So much for the Slyther. Larry reckons they should leg it, but Ian thinks someone might’ve heard them.

Cut to Dalek control. And oooh, thanks, Infotext! Apparently the day before this was recorded, there was a General Election that had resulted in a new Labour government (would that I could hope for the same in the outcome of Theresa May’s GIVE ME MORE POWER snap election in June), so there was an equipment shortage in the studio because all the cameras were tied up in election coverage. So most of this was recorded on film. I fucking love Infotext.

Whoops, I appear to have missed some Dalek ‘proceed with the operation’ dialogue. Never mind.

Anyway, the upshot of Larry and Ian lingering in the cable car coal scuttle whatchamagig is that of course it starts moving with them still in it.

Meanwhile, in the sewers, BILLY IS BAAAAAAAAACK. And, because he is Gallifreyan and must be surrounded by fabulousness at all times, he is wafting his hanky around and being generally fussy about their location. They’re being followed by two Robomen, and the Doctor has a few problems with the way Tyler’s going about things:

DOCTOR: You do realise, of course, we shall have to let them both come down before we decide to defend ourselves.
TYLER: Well, we can take them one at a time.
DOCTOR: Oh yes, just one. The other’s bound to return and bring back reinforcements.
TYLER: If we stick together long enough, I’ll learn to do what you say the first time.

Have I mentioned that I love Tyler? Please can we have him aboard the Tardis?

Anyway, Tyler tackles the first of the Robomen to come down, and David is terrible at aiming with a gun, and OH GLORY it’s the Gallifreyans to the rescue! Susan (YES SUSAN!) launches herself…er…right past the Roboman menacing Tyler and hurls herself at the Roboman currently menacing her future husband, while the Doctor rather more calculatedly whacks the Roboman menacing Tyler over the head with his cane a few times.

Yikes. Billy actually looks quite scary there. Maybe the episode title was a typo and it was actually meant to be called ‘The Whacking Ally’?

This is more effective than Susan’s method, but fortunately for everyone, Tyler is much better at aiming than David and shoots the second Roboman as he attempts to retreat up the ladder. ACTION-PACKED OR WHAT.

Then something happens that pretty-much sets the tone for the Doctor’s attitude to violence throughout the history of the show and is generally fascinating in terms of the Doctor’s character development. As Tyler moves to shoot the Roboman knocked unconscious by the Doctor’s walking stick, the Doctor stops him:

‘No, Tyler, no. I never take life. Only when my own is immediately threatened. [. . .] Leave this creature to his own devices and salvation.’

WOW. This is fascinating for all sorts of reasons. Firstly, it’s a long way away from the Doctor who was willing to brain a wounded caveman in An Unearthly Child for reasons I’m pretty sure have only a very little to do with the still hugely problematic idea of putting a ‘creature’ out of ‘its’ misery. And it’s Barbara, an initially reluctant Ian, and a newly rebellious Susan inspired by Barbara’s compassionate defiance who set that precedent of not taking a life (well, let’s be honest, a humanoid life) unless their own is threatened. And this ‘I never (well, hardly ever) take a life’ stance *is* a learned behaviour on the Doctor’s part, I think, because even as late as The Reign of Terror he has these flashes of genuinely gleeful violence that are a part of his nature and which come to the fore when he’s away from his Space Fam too long:

But you can see how his newfound respect for the humans he now calls his friends has made him want to rise to the challenge of not being the man of whom Babs once said accusingly, ‘[y]ou treat everybody and everything as something less important than yourself’. Secondly, this early ‘this is who I am and what I am about’ moment in the show resonates throughout the years, and not just because it’s one of the first milestones in a two-thousand-year-old character development arc at the end of which he is able to make a speech where he asserts that ‘the value you place on a life’ is ‘what defines a species’ (RACHEL DOLLARD, LET ME LOVE YOU). It’s also because it’s a credo that has always been something he struggles with, to the extent that in the same episode that he claims that the value placed upon a life without privilege is a measure of human progress, he also murders a guy with his sonic screwdriver (and don’t tell me it was the only thing he could have done in his own defence—his hands were already untied when he let that henchman guy get pulled under the ice by those anglerfish).

Anyway, early Classic Who character development is the best. End of.

So we’re now in the opening scenes of Macbeth (way ahead of you, Infotext), and two crones (one young, one old) are croning it up in a lightning-streaked cottage in the woods. Barbara and Jenny are ba(b)es in the wood and are looking for shelter from the storm, but everyone gets a bit of a shock when they open the door to seek said shelter.

Jenny seems to have read all the fairy tales in which crones in the woods are inherently untrustworthy, because she suggests in a rather high-pitched voice that they leave; Babs, however, seems to be mindful of the fairy tales in which all crones must be placated with food/money/shelter, because when the younger of the crones blurts out that the dogs will get them outside, she offers them a single rose a tin of beans in return for shelter from the bitter cold. Maybe she thinks that by subverting the trope and actually *performing* the role of the strange woman who comes to disturb the equilibrium of the household, she’ll be able to dictate the terms of whatever accursedness that follows, but she has forgotten that she is a nice-looking lady and that all old and/or beggar women are never to be trusted and whatever you do will be exactly the wrong thing. Don’t believe me? The eponymous Snow White let an old beggar woman offering her a wishing apple into her home and was cursed; the bratty prince in Beauty and the Beast refused to let an old beggar woman with a magic rose into his house and was cursed. If you see a crone and suspect you may be in some manner of fictional narrative, run a mile, because apparently there’s nothing less trustworthy than a woman whose identity can no longer be dictated by her sexuality and is therefore neither virgin, mother, nor whore. Seriously. There’s nothing the patriarchy fears more than a woman who can’t be put in a box according to the status of her…er…box. Hence crones, witches, hags, madwomen, shapeshifters, and supernatural women in general in every folk tale ever. I’m oversimplifying horribly, obviously. But my point is this: BARBARA, LISTEN TO JENNY, AND RUN!

Anyway, when Babs tells the crones they’re headed for the mines, there’s some excellently hammy double takes, and when the older woman tells them they’re lucky to have got this far on account of the patrols passing here, Jenny is marvellous and asks what we’re all thinking: how come the Daleks don’t know the crones are here? Well, apparently they do, and the women make clothes for the slave workers, so they’re more use doing that than mining. Oh Terry Nation, I love all these horrible little things about this post-apocalyptic world you’ve built.

As I mentioned, when the crones say they Daleks give them food for clothes but that they’re hungry most of the time, Babs gives them a tin, which disposes the crones towards them. When they grab the bag to search it for more food, Babs has the presence of mind to salvage Dortmun’s bomb plans before they start stabbing tins with knives. Good thinking, Babs. Jenny and Babs are ushered over to their bed, which they start making as the crones have a whispered conversation. The young crone says loudly that she’s going out to deliver the clothes, and Jenny once again endears herself to me forever by finding problems with this behaviour:

JENNY: Go out in this weather?
WOMAN: They’re waiting for her.
BARBARA: What about those dogs you talked about?
WOMAN: Oh, she’ll follow the patrols.
GIRL: I’ll follow the patrols.

I wonder if they’re ‘Woman’ and ‘Girl’ in the credits? (This is from an online transcript.) Oh, it says here they are ‘The Women in the Wood’, apparently. Fab.

Don’t accept these blatant lies, Jenny! Keep on picking at the truth!

Meanwhile, Ian and Larry are still descending in a mining bucket (not a cable car as I previously thought). Ian is a dork and keeps doing things like this because his ears are popping:

It stops twelve feet from the bottom, and they decide to jump before they’re tipped. Ian, because he is imbued with the godlike invulnerability of the Action Man, makes the leap like a magnificent swanbeast. Larry, alas (have I mentioned how much I love Larry?) knocks his kneecap against the truck on the way down and lands horribly on the tracks. Which means Ian has to help him along, and OH MY GOODNESS a man has…well, not sprained his ankle, but near as dammit! Hurrah! Not that I wish pain upon beloved, cheerful Larry, I’m just glad it’s not only the women who are reduced to narratively convenient hobbling in this serial. Ian helps him over to cover.

Back in the cottage, Jenny continues to be a fucking DELIGHT by being the world’s worst dinner guest:

WOMAN: I went to London once. It seems years ago now. You know, is it still the same?
JENNY: They’ve destroyed most of it.

Never change. The older woman waxes lyrical about moving pavements, the astronaut fair, and the Chelsea heliport, which obv gives Terry Nation the opportunity to hint at what Future London might be like. (Probably still a dump.) Also, Barbara’s polite nodding is beautiful.

BUT OH NO! Enter the young crone in a right state, hurtling into the arms of the older crone as THE DALEKS APPEAR IN THE DOORWAY! Who tell Babs and Jenny to follow them! Jenny looks like she's about to beat her betrayers to a bloody pulp, and Babs has to physically restrain her. Jenny’s face and actually her body language in general breaks my heart, because she doesn’t just look scared, she looks like everything she’s ever feared and fought against has finally caught up with her; the way she’s folding her arms looks like she’s physically trying to hold herself together. Barbara, meanwhile, simply looks murderous. I mean if looks could kill, those Daleks would be smoking at the ears by now. And the look she throws the two woman who have just betrayed her is peak Barbara—contempt and understanding and hurt and pity and yeah, general props to Jacqueline Hill and Ann Davies for doing some quality Face Acting in this scene. They follow the Daleks wordlessly from the room.

And oh I can’t help pitying the two collaborators, who giggle brokenly over their oranges and sugar, like Edmund who betrayed his siblings for the promise of Turkish Delight. Or at least that’s how I see the younger woman. I think this is what makes it grotesque: they’re given bread, yes—the ultimate symbol of basic human need—but they’re also given something sweet; they’ve been treated. The older woman is far more disturbing because she seems more sane, and has fashioned a sort of new morality from the smouldering ruins of her civilisation: ‘Oh, good, good. I knew they’d give us food if we told them. Oh, well. She’d have been captured anyway.’ (Or, as the Infotext points out in another bit of cut dialogue: ‘There’s only one law now—survive.’)

Have I mentioned before that Jenny was originally a younger woman called Saida? I must have, but if I haven’t, just for the record: glad they made her older in the final version, but sad they made her white. Also, she was meant to stow away aboard the Tardis as a replacement for Susan, which I also wish had happened. Then again, according to the Episode Guide, fifteen-year-old Saida was to be played by Pamela Franklin (Sandy from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie!), who is white. Which would have meant that the first Asian companion on the show (which is yet to happen, btw) would have been a white lady wearing a lot of fake tan. Yikes.

Meanwhile, in the mines, Ian has torn the seam of his jacket a bit (thanks, Infotext!), but Larry still can’t walk. Which means it’s time for some exposition. Why, for instance, aren’t the Daleks using any spacey machinery to mine for stuff? Larry confirms that it’s weird, and observes that all the Daleks seem to be shifting is rocks. Larry reiterates his brother’s theory: that they’re after the magnetic core of Earth; Ian doesn’t question this objective, but does wonder why they’re going about it in ‘such an old-fashioned way’. Larry reckons this might just be a clearance area and that they haven’t found the main shaft yet. Ian thinks this might be a thing, and asks the ever-smiling Larry whether he minds if he fucks off for a bit to do some snooping, and of course lovely Larry acquiesces. (I’m sorry, I just really warm to this guy.)

Just as Ian is about to get his snoop on, however, some workers with Very Bad Coughs are shepherded into the area by some Robomen. The human workers grab some wicker baskets, behind which Ian and Larry are hiding. Ian says they have to move and pretend to join the party, and hoists poor, hobbling Larry onto his feet.

I’ve just had a thought: I can’t remember whether Larry makes it to the end of this serial and now I’m worried he’s going to die. HIDE HIM, IAN, DON’T MAKE HIM SHIFT ROCKS WHEN HE CAN’T FUCKING WALK.

OH GOD, HERE COMES A ROBOMAN…AND IT’S LARRY’S BROTHER! Argh! Oh no, he’s going to be murdered by his brother, isn’t he? Ian, DO SOMETHING! You are the only series regular in this situation and are therefore invincible, so DO SOMETHING!

Larry’s RoboBrother drones that there are too many in the working party and checks in with Dalek control; he then asks Larry who they are. Poor, surely-doomed Larry tells Phil (for that is his name) it’s Larry, and…IAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? For the record, Ian appears to have dropped the wounded Larry at his brother’s feet!? THE FUCK, IAN? Oh no, I think Larry just tried to step forward and fell over, but still, why did you let him fall, Ian, you heartless dick? (Is he actually being a heartless dick or am I so distraught at Larry's impending and horrible demise that I’m overlooking the fact that he’s frozen in a manner relevant to his character development?)

(We interrupt this flailing over the fate of Larry and Ian’s uselessness to prevent it to observe that the Infotext tells me a Very Interesting Thing. Apparently the idea in this serial was to show human diversity in the face of Dalek uniformity, hence all the regional accents—hurrah!—but was also meant to be reflected in a multi-racial cast if only for the background characters. Oh, the generosity. But this ‘was dropped because relatively few black extras were available in London’. THE FUTURE IS A WHITEWASH.)

Larry tries to remind Phil of his wife Angela, but reasoning with brainwashed people is always useless if you’re a side character, and RoboPhil insists they are to be punished and reaches for a gun. I think. Ian chooses this moment to spring into action by trying to drag Larry away, but Larry throws him off and tells him to run as HE IS GUNNED DOWN BY HIS BROTHER AND ALSO STRANGLES HIS BROTHER, WHO RECOGNISES HIM IN HIS DYING BREATH. The extras rush over to drag the bodies away.

Fuck, that was intense. R.I.P., Larry.

Meanwhile, in the Wilderness, Susan and David are re-enacting the ‘what’s taters, Precious?’ scene from LOTR only not. I’m just trying to avoid the moment when I talk about THE FISH FIGHT OF AWKWARD SEXUAL TENSION. Which I remember finding excruciating as a child and excruciating as a teen and oh look it’s excruciating as an adult. David creeps up behind Susan and starts waving a fish in her face, which is fun, and they start playfighting, but then she’s on top of him and there’s a possibly symbolic fish and I’m too embarrassed to function.

Anyway, they abandon their precious meal in the long grass and David starts stroking Susan’s hands with his fishy hands and talking about how fantastically well her grandfather has stood up to the journey. Susan tells him her Grandfather is ‘a pretty fantastic sort of man’. Then this happens:

WHAAAAAAAAAAT am I dead inside or is it a bit iffy that David’s response to Susan telling him what a fantastic guy her grandfather is = moving in for a snog? I’m not suggesting for a second that it’s not reciprocated, but it’s a bit of a weird way to generate sexual tension. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Susan finally gets to have a sex drive (and that she’s following her Space Mum’s example of getting it on with the filthy-jokey hottie from the Dalek-fighting resistance), but it’s clear she’s still got some Granddaddy Issues to work through before she’s ready to commit to her first heterosexual relationship (that we know of).

Mercifully, the Doctor and Tyler arrive at this point; the Doctor, hysterically, comments that he ‘sees something’s cooking’ (oh Billy). And the moral of this story is never to let your patriarch see you kissing another man or he’ll make you marry them.

Susan is still handling the gross fish that’s been on the floor all this time (PUT IT DOWN, DARLING WEIRDO), and there’s some excruciating but funny dialogue where David is awkwardly babbling about the rabbit stew and the Doctor tells him that Susan is a very good cook. STOP IT, DOCTOR. STOP IT NOW. Also, Susan gave David a look that would curdle butter when he asked her whether she could cook when he was being a casual sexist on their first meeting, so why is this OK now?

Anyway, David is sucking up to the Doctor asking what he thinks the Daleks are up to now he’s seen their base. The Doctor reckons it’s the centre of their mining operations and is surprised Tyler’s lot didn’t concentrate their attacks on it. At any rate, it’s probably the answer to *why* the Daleks are here. Then this happens:

DAVID: But why, Doctor? Surely they’ve invaded us?
DOCTOR: Oh no, it goes much deeper than that. You see, man, to them, is just a work machine. An insignificant specimen that is not worth invading. Absolutely useless. It doesn’t matter to them whether you live or die.
TYLER: Yeah, that’s true enough.

Oh my GOLLY that is heartbreaking. I love that Terry Nation made the Daleks evil not because of their lust for conquest but because their attitude towards humanity is the polar opposite to the Doctor’s recently-acquired philosophy, and builds on the Daleks as Space Nazis: they believe there are groups of sentient life forms in the universe whose lives Do Not Matter. Which is crushing for the resistance, because now they’re not even fighting against invaders: the Daleks were never fighting a war, they just needed workers. As Tyler says, if what they’d wanted had been on the surface of the Earth, they’d just have come and taken it. ‘OUCH’ doesn’t even cover it. Terry Nation, you are a soul-destroying bastard of utter brilliance.

Unfortunately, it all gets a bit technobabble from hereon in. The actors do their best, but it’s mostly nonsense:

DOCTOR: [T] here they are, burrowing like moles down and through the crust of the Earth.
TYLER: But isn’t that impossible? I mean, without causing an eruption, a huge earthquake no one could survive.
DOCTOR: Not unless they know how to control the flow of living energy, hmm?
DAVID: Is that what it is? They dare to tamper with the forces of creation?
DOCTOR: Yes, they dare. And we have got to dare to stop them.

I mean, the ending is pretty cool, but ‘flow of living energy’? What’s that when it’s at home. Make your fake science more convincing, Terry! Also, Susan the super-advanced space child who has thus far been ENTIRELY EXCLUDED FROM THE CONVERSATION since the last time she talked about cooking, pipes up to remind her Grandfather that the food she has made him is getting cold. And just like that, my goosebumpy delight with Terry Nation’s script evaporates with the white hot rage of what is being done to Susan in this serial. I reiterate: Susan lay on the grass and didn’t say anything while men talked about important things until it was time for her to talk about rabbit stew. I need to punch something.

Back in the mines, Ian is skulking like a pro…AS BARBARA AND JENNY ARE HERDED RIGHT PAST HIM BY ROBOMEN! Ian, what happened to your Barbara-sensing superpowers? Oh no, wait, there they are. You can almost see the words ‘target acquired’ flashing behind his eyes.

A Dalek stands by as Jenny and Babs start shifting rocks. And now it’s Jenny’s turn to fall over. Babs rushes to her aid, refilling the basket of rocks, and yet another beautiful scene between these two women happens:

JENNY: We’re beaten, Barbara. We’ll never get out of here. Never.
BARBARA: Don’t be silly, Jenny. That’s no way to talk. Look, we wanted to get to the mine and we’re here.
JENNY: Yes, but what can we do?
BARBARA: You can help me fill this basket again. We could try and find their main control room. I’m sure that’s what the Doctor would do.
JENNY: And then what will happen?
BARBARA: Oh, I don’t know, Jenny, I don’t know, but look, we can try! If we get there and fail, well, all they’ll do is send us back here.

THESE TWO. It’s finally Jenny’s turn to despair, and yes, she’s been doing this longer than Babs and has lost more people, so is justifiably at the end of her tether. But Babs has despaired, too, and this time she isn’t giving up. And it’s lovely to see that, just as the Doctor has been learning from Barbara, so she’s been learning from him, and is trying to think what he would do. She’s not just putting blind faith in the fact of the Doctor’s survival and hoping he’ll sort everything out (even though belief that her friends are still alive is what drives her), she’s actively trying to stop the Daleks and…well, save the world. And while I don’t necessarily appreciate Barbara saying ‘don’t be silly’—because as I say, it’s Barbara’s hope that she will be reunited with her Space Family that gives her the strength to keep going, whereas Jenny has already lost everyone she ever cared about—I’d argue that Babs is still ultimately supportive rather than dismissive. What I particularly appreciate is that when Jenny asks what they can do now they’ve supposedly achieved their goal of getting to the mines, Barbara starts beautifully small: ‘You can help me fill this basket again.’

Anyway, it transpires that one of the men in their working party is none other than Wells, last seen scarpering from the Slyther. He goes around the corner with some more wicker baskets (where did the Daleks get all these wicker baskets?) and bumps into Ian. Who waves away the fact that Wells told him to get out of dodge and tells him about ‘the tall girl in the blue sweater’:

I will never not grind my teeth at men referring to grown-ass women as girls, but for some reason I appreciate his description of her, not only because we now know the colour of her sweater, but because he sees her distinguishing feature as ‘tall’ rather than ‘fucking enormous hair’. Also, there’s something slightly devastating about Ian’s lack of a plan: right now the most important thing for him is not to stop the Daleks, it’s just to let Barbara know he’s here. And in a story in which almost everyone is alone, having lost their friends and family to the Daleks, or having gone in search of long-lost brothers, there’s a very good reason apart from the fact that he and Babs are BFFs In Space for Ian to put so much emphasis on just three words: ‘I know her.’

I’m sorry, good world building makes me feel things.

(Also someone else needs the telly so I’m finishing off this episode without Infotext.)

Meanwhile, Jenny is still arguing with Babs about her plan to get to the control room, when our tall, blue-sweatered bamf has a brainwave—Dortmun’s notes! Say what? Apparently there’s no time to explain (how Doctorish!), and she grabs Jenny’s hand (how Doctorish!) and drags her into the path of a Dalek (how Doctorish!). She tells the Dalek she has important information about a planned revolution, and uses Dortmun’s plans for the acid bomb to convince said Dalek her information is legit. Bloody hell, Babs, the brass neck on you. Not only does she unflinchingly bullshit *this* Dalek (and rather adorably holds up the notes to its eyepiece so it can see), she convinces it that her story is so ‘very complex and detailed’ she needs to speak to someone in authority. I repeat: she walks up to a Dalek and demands to speak to its boss. Heart Eyes. And after a brief eye-roll (or at least that’s what I’m assuming the Dalek is doing when it points its eye-stalk up to the ceiling), the Dalek acquiesces: the Black Dalek (apparently the other Daleks call it the Black Dalek, too—weird) will see her, but if she’s lying, she’s for the chop. Gulp. Jenny looks like she hopes Babs knows what she’s doing. As do we all.

Ian has apparently been watching from afar, and when Wells comes back and tells Ian to get in line, Ian says it’s too late and that the Daleks have just taken her. Did Ian hear what went on, or does he think she’s being taken to be executed? He’s inscrutable but antsy. Wells isn’t that bothered and tells Ian to lose himself in an empty gallery. Which he does.

Back in the control room, the Daleks are talking over the progress of their mostly bullshit plan which weirdly seems to consist mainly of words you’d find in a bad smutfic what with shafts and penetration explosives and molten cores. Essentially they’re going to explode a fissure in the Earth’s crust and all the molten stuff will leak out and the Earth’s core will be demagnetised and the whole thing is called Project Degravitate. It is…actually pretty unimportant, tbh, all that matters is that there’s a bomb and someone will probably have to stop it.

Cue Ian, who has blundered right into the room containing the bomb capsule (and right under a Dalek’s nose)…HOW!? He overhears the rest of the plan, which is to stick a giant motor inside the Earth so the Daleks can fly it wherever they want. I can’t even.

But oh crumbs and crikey, the bomb capsule has closed (convenient that it has a man-sized space inside it) and Ian is trapped within and he’s about to be dropped down a mine shaft into the core of the planet where it will explode and WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING. HOW DO THE DALEKS NOT NOTICE HIM? Ian starts fiddling with wires.

DON’T EVEN ASK ME I HAVEN’T A CLUE. WILL IAN BE EXPLODED? WHO *WAS* THE WAKING ALLY ANYWAY? WHAT COULD THE DALEKS POSSIBLY DO WITH A MOTORISED PLANET? WILL BABS MANAGE TO BULLSHIT HUMANITY OUT OF THIS MESS? WILL THE DOCTOR STOP WITH HIS MATCHMAKING FROM HELL? WILL SUSAN GET SOMETHING COOL TO DO BEFORE SHE IS CONDEMNED TO A LIFE OF FISH FIGHTS AND OUTDOOR COOKING? HOW, IN SHORT, WILL THEY EVER GET OUT OF THIS ONE?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? With flying colours. And some of the scenes had as many as four women with speaking parts having a conversation about Not Men, though as two of them are known only as ‘The Women in the Wood’  I am unsure as to whether this counts. Still, Babs and Jenny nail it anyway.

Is the gaze problematic? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? Nope.

Save the girl or save the world? Whose decision is it? N/A.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? Jenny alas does take a tumble, but Larry is the biggest hobbler 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? Yup. Betrayed by other women! Shocker!

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Ian seems to want only to let Babs know he is there rather than rescue her per se. Also, she and Jenny are hatching plans of their own. Well, Babs is.

Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Babs and Jenny are held at Dalek gunpoint, and threatened with death a bit, but Ian is also in a fair amount of peril this week.

Does a woman have to deal with a sexual predator? Nope. Consensual, fishy antics.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? Susan a bit, but she then gets stuck in attacking Robomen.

Does a woman faint at the sight of peril/horror or generally lose consciousness (discounting normal sleep)? Nope.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? Nope. 

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? Nope. Though you could argue that the Doctor is sowing the seeds of his betrayal (yes I'm calling it that).

Does a woman suffer in silence (to further the plot)? Nope.

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? The Doctor a propos of Susan and her culinary skills.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? Nope. Babs calms/comforts Jenny, while Ian calms/comforts Larry. LARRY.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? Erm, I'd say Babs and Jenny are most menaced by Daleks (even though actually Babs and Jenny mostly just glare at them, so it’s not gratuitous), but Susan and the Doctor have to deal with Robomen, while Ian has to deal with the Slyther.

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? Oh yes! Babs has a plan to bullshit her way into Dalek control.

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? Yes and no, though Jenny is pretty sceptical of Barbara and her WWTDD plan.

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? Nope.

Does a woman get to be a badass? Erm, YES. Bullshitting a Dalek is not for the faint hearted.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? In the Susan subplot everyone is now deferring to the Doctor, while the Ian subplot is mostly him not being very in control and just ending up in lots of places by accident. Elsewhere, Babs continues to run the show. 

Is there past/future/alien sexism? Susan is relegated to cooking duties despite the fact that she objected to this sort of bullshit at the beginning of the serial. Also the Doctor tries to matchmake by bigging up her culinary skills rather than any aspect of her character.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? Nope.

Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? RECIPROCATED FISHY SEXUAL TENSION AND FREUDIAN SNOGGING.

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

Verdict

A mixed bag, insofar as there are some truly excellent scenes that I could’ve and hav’ve gushed over for ages but also some WTF moments (mostly involving Susan). I can’t believe they’re writing her out with this bullshit. Also poor old Ian is just blundering around the mines this week watching people get murdered and accidentally derping his way inside a Dalek bomb casing. However, I did really enjoy his relationship with Larry, and was obv devastated when I remembered that Larry was Doomed. I will be paying close attention to what happens to Ian now we’ve seen several episodes in which a close male chum gets deaded on his watch. I also loved his reaction to seeing Babs again, which shows a refreshing change insofar as his immediate reaction is not based on the assumption that she needs rescuing. Babs and Jenny are once again my utter faves, and even the stupidity of the Daleks’ plan cannot dampen my enthusiasm for their subplot this week. Also, heartbreaking world-building from Terry Nation is heartbreaking.

Season 2 Episode 7: The End of Tomorrow

Serial: The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Episode: 4 (The End of Tomorrow)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Richard Martin
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 12/12/1964

RED ROVER, RED ROVER, LET BARBARA COME OVER (and other stories)

In which Barbara smashes through a Dalek blockade with a truck and that is all you need to know about this episode because why would you not want to watch/read about that.

It’s the end of tomorrow! Apparently. (Do any of these episode titles actually bear any relevance to the plot these days?) And Susan, David, and Not William Hartnell have just noticed they’re sitting next to a firebomb. Because Billy is out of action with a bad back, it’s David who gets to disable the firebomb using a combination of acid from Dortmun’s bomb and poking it with a stick. Don’t ask me how, it just works.

WAIT, there was metal-melting acid in those Science Grenades? Bloody hell, I'm surprised any of the rebels came out of that battle without major chemical burns. Why were none of them wearing masks while they were running about in all that smoking acid? And Babs was about to lob one at Ian last week!

Relief ensues, and David says they should leave the Doctor hiding while they try to find a way out of London via the sewers (seeing as the Daleks will think this area is in flames and won’t come a-calling). Susan doesn’t like the idea of leaving him (oh the irony) but David shakes her until she agrees with him. What a promising start to a relationship.

Back at the transport museum, Babs and Jenny are pumping up the tyres of an enormous truck (all the motorcars are, inconveniently, on the upper floors). They talk about engines for a bit and how the noise of it starting up will probably bring the Daleks down on them; Babs says it’s a risk they have to take; Jenny is like, well DUH. I love watching these two trying to out-grit each other. They both realise they won’t get far, but Babs is still desperately clinging to this veneer of polite but terse not-really-optimism. There’s a poignant moment when Jenny asks Babs whether she knows the route to Bedfordshire, and Babs admits she used to…er…that is, she’s definitely not a time traveller, she just used to live there, and we’re (is that the Royal We, Babs?) not sure how much damage the Daleks have done; Jenny tells her grimly to wait and see what they have in fact done to Bedfordshire.

Also I love the idea that in the twenty-second century they keep heavy goods vehicles from the 1960s in working order so they can drive them in parades. I want this to be a thing. Pass this down the generations so this will be a thing.

Meanwhile, Ian and the ever-cheerful Larry have arrived at the Dalek mines. There are chain gangs of humans pulling huge carts down into the mines in an uncomfortably long sequence, and then Ian spots some stock footage of cable cars. Before they can get out of the open, they bump into a guy called Wells, who hastily gives them some pick-axes for the purposes of conning the Roboman who comes around the corner. They’re assigned to a work detail, and the guy is whacked with a stick.

When Ian and Larry run to help, the Roboman tells them not to resist orders. Ian is just about done and hurls some sass his way: GET NEW ORDERS. The Roboman is, apparently, flabbergasted, and they duck inside. The Robomen must have one hell of a psychological impact because physically they’re pretty useless: it takes him an age to follow them, by which time they’re all set up for Ian to kosh him when he comes through the door. Which he does.

Wells tells them to blend in with a work party, and tells them he’s meeting a black marketer called Ashton. Ian wants to meet him, too, so he can get out of London, seeing as he has friends there. Wells tells him the Daleks destroyed it; Ian dusts off his ‘oh shit’ face from The Reign of Terror.

Back at the transport museum, Babs and Jenny are getting ready to bounce, and Babs has remembered to pack Dortmun’s notes. Then this happens:

JENNY: Why did he do it?
BARBARA: Oh, many reasons. Mainly because he wouldn't give in.
JENNY: What's the point of that? He just threw his life away. It was so senseless.
BARBARA: It depends on how you look at it.
JENNY: You've got this romantic idea about resistance. There is nothing heroic about dying. There's no point in throwing lives away just to prove a principle.
BARBARA: If Dortmun hadn't thrown his life away, we would all be dead. He knew exactly what he was doing. He sacrificed himself so that you and I would have a chance. Come on, we're ready to go.

Well, isn’t that a fascinating little exchange? It’s not surprising that this is a sore spot with Barbara, who was willing to keep quiet about the fact she was dying all the way through Planet of Giants initially for no discernible reason but latterly (in, as I say, the unmangled and less stupid version) because she found herself at the sticky end of a ‘save the girl or save the world’ scenario. And again in a Terry Nation script we’re seeing this alarming readiness on Barbara’s part to embrace death to prove a principle (I will never stop bringing up the time she was willing to die on Skaro rather than leave Ian stuck in some Dalek casing). It’s also an illuminating insight into Jenny’s character: she may be a hardened survivor and a valuable member of the resistance, but she’s lost too many people to find the idea of resistance romantic (which Babs, as we know from The Reign of Terror, absolutely does). But hurrah for two women having a meaty conversation, in which we’re faced with the question of the extent to which, as the Doctor puts it, ‘our lives are important’.

Babs gets the engine going (PLEASE tell me she drives the school bus on school trips) and they’re off.

Also, I love that there's an entire sequence leading up to Jenny hopping into the truck which is done with Dortmun's corpse very prominently in the foreground. Particularly the little beat where Jenny hesitates before running to open the doors because she's staring at Dortmun. It's amazing what you can do when you've got, y'know, enough space to actually compose a shot like that. I will never be over how much the location filming makes this serial.

Meanwhile, in the sewers, Susan observes that it smells like an old goat farm. David, do you not know Gallifreyans are allergic to squalor? They find a cartridge, which Susan assumes means the presence of friends (seeing as Daleks don’t use guns). There’s some excellent cut dialogue from David (thanks, Infotext!):

‘The world you have come into is one where friendships mean very little. There’s been no place for sentiment in our society. Just staying alive is the most anybody has time for.’

Well that’s fucking heartbreaking. And certainly explains Jenny. But hey, they cut it, so our loss. At any rate, we get the sense that there are humans who will kill each other for food—as Susan puts it, survival at all costs. BUT OH NO MORE LOVELY CUT DIALOGUE (this time from Susan):

‘The four of us faced dangers together, and it seemed to give us a greater understanding of one another’.

I keep forgetting that Terry Nation is the writer who brought us lines like ‘fear makes companions of all of us’, so I shouldn’t be surprised, but oh why did they cut this? Why?

Also, we’re about to find out why this human-on-human violence in a broken, post-apocalyptic society thing has reared its ugly head, because—SCREECH TIME! Susan’s spotted a gun being pointed at them.

We return to Babs and Jenny, trucking away like bosses. Jenny seems to be deferring to Babs a bit more, which is cool, and Babs reckons they’ll probably have to ditch the truck at any moment, seeing as how they Daleks will have heard them back there.

AND THEN THERE IS A DALEK ROAD BLOCK. AND BARBARA—MILD-MANNERED BADASS BARBARA—DECIDES TO GO STRAIGHT THROUGH THEM.

Jenny’s delight is second only to my own, as she positively giggles with glee; Babs, ever the master of the understatement, admits that was rather good.

I’m not even going to gripe about the fact that they could definitely have exterminated her through the windscreen, for nothing will convince me that this moment is anything other than perfect. Then again why are we surprised that Babs would drive a truck through the Daleks? She has taken on Daleks with mud and some rocks and lived to tell the tale before now, and her continued revenge must be pretty sweet given that they gave her the fright of her life on Skaro. BRAVA, BABS.

Back aboard the Dalek saucer, the Daleks are ordering the destruction of ‘the rebel vehicle’…which means Babs and Jenny! Cripes!

On the road, Babs asks Jenny what ‘that noise’ is, and lo and behold it’s a Dalek saucer right overhead. The two of them jump for it…and the truck explodes! Blimey, did they get out of the way in time?

Back in the sewers, it seems the gun-wielding humans are friendly, because Susan is babbling happily about something being jolly lucky. And jolly lucky is exactly what they are, for the mystery man is Tyler! I’ve missed you, old chum. He has exactly the kind of grim, trustworthy face you need to tell the audience about alligators in the sewers. Which apparently there are, due to escaped zoo animals and that.

Susan asks Tyler whether he’s seen Ian and Barbara, and he answers ‘I’m sorry, no’, before moving on ahead. Piqued, Susan asks David why he’s so abrupt, and David tells her Tyler is afraid to make friends because he’s known too much killing. Then this happens:

SUSAN: Well, I hope I'm never like that, pretending not to care.
DAVID: Bah. One day this will be all over. It'll mean a new start.
SUSAN: A new start? Rebuilding a planet from the very beginning. It's a wonderful idea.
DAVID: You could always help.
SUSAN: Yes.

Susan, you couldn’t not care if you tried. Also, I’ve just realised how much of a parallel this is to the end of The Daleks, where the Doctor is tempted to stay and help the Thals rebuild their civilisation. Like grandfather, like granddaughter, I suppose. (Also, there’s some Gone With The Wind style cut dialogue where David tells Susan he’s going to be a farmer because the land is all that matters and the world’s saturated with Science. Does this make Susan Scarlett O’Hara? And more importantly, will Sciency telepath Susan be happy as a farmer’s wife? I worry.)

Elsewhere, it transpires Babs and Jenny are indeed safe, and that Jenny is considerably friendlier towards Babs now that she has witnessed her full magnificence. Not unkindly, she poses Babs a thorny question:

JENNY: Barbara, suppose we don't find your friends at the mine?
BARBARA: I'll think about that when we get there. Look, you don't have to stay with me if you don't want to. I can get there on my own.
JENNY: We might as well stay together.
BARBARA: All right, come on then.

Did I say Susan was Scarlett? Babs is doing a classic ‘I’ll think about that tomorrow’. Also, Jenny’s feigned reluctance is a joy. As J.K. Rowling almost said, there are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out an entire Dalek patrol with a truck is one of them.

Back at the mine, some manner of terribly-realised creature is lurking in the background. Spooked by the sound of it, Ian and Larry hurry back indoors and are met with the business end of a pistol. Crumbs. It’s Ashton, who tells them to GTFO, but Ian guesses who he is and strikes up a conversation. Outside, the Slyther (for this is what the creature is) makes a noise like one of those thingummies you turn upside down and it makes a noise almost but not quite entirely unlike a sheep. Ian says he wants to go to London, but Ashton wants cash…ton. (Sorry.)

Ian and Ashton are properly squaring up (because Ian thinks his friends are dead again and all good humour has gone from his face) when Wells comes in and defuses the situation. Wells gives him a shiny thing, and Ashton gives him some food. Wells mentions the Slyther again, and when Ian asks what the Slyther is, Ashton asks whether he’s come from fairyland. Homophobe.

Wells explains that the Slyther is a creature the Black Dalek regards as some manner of pet, and it goes around eating people at night. Which explains…not a lot. And oh sweet Jesus that sound effect is teeeeeeerrible. I kind of want it as a text alert.

Meanwhile, in the sewers, Susan is yelling for Tyler, who is nowhere to be seen. She and David try a nearby ladder, and head into the tunnel leading off it. Susan climbs down another ladder into another part of the sewer, but it comes away from the side of the wall so she can dangle, imperilled, as AN ALLIGATOR waits below to devour her.

Actually, that alligator is pretty cute.

In the nick of time, Tyler appears to shoot it and David grabs the ladder. David makes a joke about Susan giving the alligator indigestion (‘thank YOU,’ quoth Susan), and they all go up to the surface and back to the Doctor.

Back at the mines, Ashton is telling Wells what an idiot he is for spending his shinies on food instead of safe passage out of dodge. They’re all eating happily, when OH CRIKEY CRIPES the Slyther breaks in and extends a gammy hand towards Ashton! He shoots at the Slyther but to no avail. Will the other three save him? They…will not. They peg it out of the room, and Larry and Ian find themselves faced with a sheer drop. They have to go back! But OH NO! What do they run into but…THE SLYTHER! TRY PARSELTONGUE, IAN!

Oh god that gammy hand wibbling about is too much.

WILL THE SLYTHER EMBARRASS THEM TO DEATH WITH ITS SHITNESS? WILL THE DOCTOR BE BACK NEXT WEEK ONCE BILLY HAS GIVEN HIS BACK A REST? WILL SUSAN GET SOME MORE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT BEFORE HER DEPARTURE? WILL BABS AND JENNY START A NEW LIFE TOGETHER BEING ITINERANT BAMFS, OR WILL EVERYONE YET BE REUNITED?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? With flying colours.

Is the gaze problematic? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? Nope.

Save the girl or save the world? Whose decision is it? N/A.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? Nope. But Susan does end up almost being alligator food when the ladder gives way as she attempts to descend it.

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? Nope.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Yup. Susan needs rescuing from her ladder predicament.

Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Alligators?

Does a woman have to deal with a sexual predator? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? Susan.

Does a woman faint at the sight of peril/horror or generally lose consciousness (discounting normal sleep)? Nope.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? Nope, though David treats Susan like an hysteric when she won't leave the Doctor behind.

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? Nope.

Does a woman suffer in silence (to further the plot)? Nope.

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? No.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? Yup. Susan.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? Erm, I'd say Susan is the first to be imperilled by that alligator, but Ian and Larry are about to be Slyther fodder. Babs and Susan do get a Dalek patrol and a saucer sent after them, but they deal with it.

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? Not many plans this week, just survival.

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? N/A as he's out for the count.

Does a woman get to be a badass? AND. HOW.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? In the Susan subplot (and obviously the Ian subplot) yes, but elsewhere certainly not.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? Not massively, but David does talk down to Susan a LOT.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? Nope.

Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? David and Susan have definite sexual tension.

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

Verdict

In short, a romp. Babs and Jenny are the highlight, Susan alas gets relegated to the status of shrieking D.I.D. (but with a couple of promising moments where the idea of rebuilding a planet from scratch seems to fire her imagination), the Doctor is M.I.A., and Ian alas (again) has gone back into humourless action man mode. You could argue that this is because he once again believes the Space Fam is no more, but equally give him some character development please. The truck-smashing scene is the obvious winner, but close behind are those scenes in which Babs and Jenny actually get some reasonable meaty dialogue and a friendship is forged. Particularly illuminating stuff on attitudes towards death and sacrifice, too. (And I’m enjoying that both the serials of this season have devoted a fair amount of time to putting the regulars in a position where they’re being forced to consider what they will make of their lives if they end up alone in this time/place. Which is particularly poignant for Susan, who is about to have this question forced upon her.) In short, more of these two doing everything, please, and more of these meatier scenes with uncomfortable questions. And please can we never see the Slyther again. Like, ever. (Oh, and special mention for the cut dialogue but also for the scenes in which we get a little more world-building and a wonderfully grim outlook on the human race where we meet some humans who neither value human life nor subscribe to any ideals but have found a thoroughly nasty way to profit from a planet’s misery.) Next week, er…betrayals? It think we’re headed for the collaborators, if memory serves. Bring it on.

Season 2 Episode 6: Day of Reckoning

Serial: The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Episode: 3 (Day of Reckoning)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Richard Martin
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 05/12/1964

‘LONDON: WHAT A DUMP.’ (and other stories)

In which Babs is a guerrilla badass, Ian is good at hiding, Susan has an identity crisis, the Doctor is the grandpatriarchy (and mostly unconscious), everyone rethinks their responsibilities, and there is more iconic location shooting than you can shake a stick at.

Oh that theme tune after all this time. I think I’m having an emotion.

So it’s been an age since the last cliffhanger, and SUFFERING ZARQUON the Doctor is about to be robotised! Will Tyler et al save him?

Well, we’re going to have to wait to find out, because back at Resistance HQ, Dortmun is playing travel chess with himself. I repeat: Dortmun is playing travel chess with himself, which means that when the apocalypse came, this guy saved his mini board games. Does he have pocket Scrabble, too? I jest, but ‘the world is ending and Dortmun is playing chess with himself’ is a pretty accurate representation of Dortmun’s character.

Back at the saucer, the rebels attack one of the Robomen (oh I think it’s Noah from The Ark In Space again…didn’t he die already?) and Tyler and some other guy carry the Doctor off the robotising table. The rebels are freeing prisoners, and it’s chaos.

Outside, David, Babs, and Susan are crouching like bosses, and David beckons a balaclava-wearing Jenny over. Because Jenny is oldschool. He tells her to take the ladyfolk back to HQ, while he tries to get to the saucer alone. Jenny, obviously, protests, because this is idiotic, and tries to rally the other women by telling them their friends are in there. Which Babs didn’t know, because Susan was keeping it from her. BAD SUSAN. Pausing only to confirm her Space Daughter’s very uncool behaviour, Babs decides she can be an idiot, too, and launches herself towards the saucer. And because she is a Bamf and because the Bae is in trouble, Babs has to physically fight Susan off in order to do…whatever she’s about to do. Because she has no plan. But it matters not, for apparently Ian’s ‘BARBARAAAAAAA!!!’ reflex is reciprocated, which means that their mutual homing instinct will keep them from all harm, and anyway she has a Science Grenade.

The rebels are fighting tooth and nail, and lobbing smoky bombs all over the shop, and the prisoners (including the Doctor) are fleeing the saucer. I think I said this about the last episode, but this must have been bedlam to film. And the way it’s cut does give you this sense of a fast enough to be exciting/slow enough to be grim guerrilla battle, what with Daleks firing and people dying and smoke everywhere and Science Stink Bombs going off. Then this happens:

You may see your Space Bae across a crowded room.

OH MY PRECIOUS DARLINGS. The delighted, derpy look Babs throws Ian’s way before bowling another excellent overarm #likeagirl is gorgeous. Ian flees back inside the saucer as a Dalek glides past, and the rebels scatter and retreat.

Back on the saucer, it’s established that most of the rebels have either been captured or killed, and the survivors are being hunted down and murdered. Grim times. Ian, fortunately, has survived this purge by the simple expedient of hiding under the floor. I bet Ian is excellent at sardines.

AND OH TRICKSY FALSE CAMERA SHOTS, we go back immediately to an apparently lifeless Babs lying on a slab while an unseen woman sobs in the background. IS SHE DEADED? No, just out for the count. Phew. And she’s being tended by the brusque but supportive Jenny. As soon as she can speak, she’s badgering Tyler, but Jenny tells her ‘not now’, and a grimly exhausted Tyler informs Dortmun that his bombs were fucking useless. MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE TESTED THEM, DORTMUN, YOU HUBRISTIC ASSHAT.

So all the rebels are probably dead, but Babs cares only about Ian and the Doctor, because of course. Tyler tells her they *nearly* got the old man out. Outraged Babs is outraged. Anyway, Tyler reckons they all need to get the hell out of London because they’ve attacked a Dalek saucer and revenge is surely a-brewing. Dortmun says they should stay and work on the bomb; Tyler points out he’ll only have ‘one man’ and ‘these two’ (thanks) to use it for him. Jenny agrees they need to scarper, but Babs worries what will happen if Susan comes back and doesn’t know where they are; Jenny says there are codes; Babs points out Susan doesn’t know them. Which leads me to ask where in fact Susan is and why Jenny (who was last with her) abandoned her in the fray. Bad parenting from everyone.

Tyler goes off to look for more survivors; Babs wants to go with him, but he tells her no because he wants to move about alone. Which is honest, to be fair. She reminds him to look for her fam, with increasing desperation.

Character development digression: this antsy, trigger-happy, hungry-for-action, would-do-anything-for-the-Space-Fam Babs we get to see in this serial makes so much sense when you think about it in terms of her character arc. The first season for Barbara was all about coming to terms with being a time traveller, and forging that post-Aztecs relationship with the Doctor. This season, we’ve not yet had a(n?) historical adventure, and of course the previous serial was one in which Babs (in the uncut, less stupid version of Planet of Giants, at least) had to come to terms with what it means to acknowledge something worth dying for in amongst the absurdity of being home, when home was made strange and dangerous. Now she’s back in London, but in a post-apolcalyptic, Dalek-filled future London, and it’s illuminating to see her juggling that capacity for action she discovered on Skaro the first time she donned a pair of Excellent Thal Trousers and that sense of being in the right place at the wrong time. Essentially she’s applying the Doctor’s ‘at least we can stop being carried away with the flood’ model of time travel from The Reign of Terror to her own future, but without that sense of overwhelming responsibility she gets when she’s in her own past. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen, so she can act, in a way, irresponsibly. Of course, Babs continues to have a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong, but there are times when being freed from the context in which those morals make sense makes her think less before she acts, especially where non-human-looking aliens are concerned (see her willingness to murder the mind-controlling snail brains in a previous Terry Nation script because they looked horrible). Which culminates in her shooting poor old Sandy in the next serial, much to Vicki’s chagrin, at which point she has to dial it back.

Anyway, Jenny is apparently willing to leave one of the cowering, shell-shocked rebels still at the base behind, and Dortmun is going to move to the other London base (across one of the bridges!) so he can keep working on the bomb. Babs says they’ll go with him. Then this happens:

‘You needn’t stay if you don’t want to,’ she adds coolly. BURN. Jenny, cowed by Barbara’s (selective) moral compass (I notice she didn’t object to leaving the shell-shocked guy to be killed by the Daleks when they inevitably revenge-attack the rebel base) decides she will join the running-across-London party. Babs asks Dortmun whether she thinks her Space Fam will be there; he replies breezily in the affirmative.

I love how Dortmun and Barbara both have their own kind of monomania, and how Jenny fits into this. I said before how you could read Jenny as a kind of potential future Barbara, which is to say a woman who has lost her family to the Daleks and who has channelled her remaining energies into survival-orientated badassery. And we know Babs is more than capable of living the Dalek-smashing life, and being excellent at it, but at what cost to her moral identity? I think Jenny and Barbara end up responding to one another so well because there’s some mutual recognition there.

Back on the saucer, the Dalek Supreme is ordering the fire-bombing of London. Yikes. The saucer flies over the city like a wobbly milk bottle top (beaut) accompanied by ‘[w]hatever Special Effects think a flying saucer sounds like’ (thanks, Infotext!).

Ian, apparently sensing that he is alone, crawls out of the his hidey-hole in the floor and bumps into Craddock!Roboman, who instantly tries to robotise him. With the help of the prisoner RoboCraddock is escorting, Ian gets the helmet off him and he sparks out. Ian and his new chum, whose name is Larry, instantly hit it off (said chum is heading to the mines to look for his brother and has stowed away), and they throw RoboCraddock out of the rubbish chute. They go back to hiding in the floor. Also Ian is adorable at meeting new people.

Meanwhile, Susan and David are running down a corridor thingie and dive behind a shrub. It’s not a million miles away from the French & Saunders LOTR spoof where Frodo evades the Nazgul by hiding behind a large twig.

They are being chased by a Dalek, who gives up on them, but then rather horribly murders someone offscreen as David buries Susan’s head in his biceps. Then a beautiful scene happens:

SUSAN: If only we could go to the ship and get away from here.
DAVID: Well, I couldn't go anyway.
SUSAN: David, David, perhaps you could. I could ask Grandfather. I'm sure he'd let you come. We could go to a place that had never even heard of Daleks. 

DAVID: And what happens if there's something unpleasant in the new place? 

SUSAN: We'll move on somewhere. 

DAVID: No, Susan, that's not for me. 

SUSAN: Why not? 

DAVID: Look, things aren't made better by running away. 

SUSAN: Well, it's suicide to stay here. 

DAVID: This is my planet! I just can't run off and see what it's like on Venus! 

SUSAN: I never felt there was any time or place that I belonged to. I've never had any real identity.
DAVID: One day you will. There will come a time when you're forced to stop travelling, and you'll arrive somewhere.

Pausing only to chuckle immoderately at the fact that this is essentially that scene from The Sound of Music where Revered Mother tells Maria she can’t use the convent to run away from her problems and that she has to go back and face them (which I suppose makes the Tardis the convent), HURRAH FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. (Also, Terry Nation I take my hat off to you for the incisive poetry of that last line—and you’ll arrive somewhere. Perfect analysis is perfect.) I still think she and David are wrong for each other in the long term, because it’s clear just how childish Susan still is from this exchange, and I still think it’s criminal that what happens to Susan is less a case of having ‘arrived somewhere’ than having been ‘forced to stop travelling’, but I love that we get to meet someone who is conscious of being invested in their time/place and who actually calls the Gallifreyans out on their ‘don’t get swept away with the flood’ attitude to life. (David may be patronising as hell, but it pains me to say he’s also right.) If Susan had then gone on for another couple of serials in which she could have dealt with being challenged like this and then had some proper barneys with her Grandfather, it would have been so much more satisfying. Susan is learning that home isn’t just about belonging and identity, it’s also about accepting responsibility. And it’s particularly galling that the Doctor, who makes the decision to ground Susan apparently for her own good, never learns that all-important lesson that every little Time Lord has to stop running one day.

Ermahgerd serxhual ternshern.

(Disclaimer: there is, as I have mentioned before, something beautiful in the Doctor’s ‘our lives are important’ philosophy, and I have waxed lyrical about it elsewhere, but there’s also the flip side of that philosophy which is what I’m dealing with above. And I am aware that we have just had that serial where, in its uncut and unstupid version, Babs and the Doctor decide to take a stand instead of running. In short, it’s nowhere near as simple a trajectory as I’m making out, but this is just one way of looking at it.)

Anyway, the sudden sexual tension that ensues is shattered by a noise, and Susan is back to being bossed about and told to hide as David bumps into a rebel called Baker…WHO IS DRAGGING THE DOCTOR ALONG! He’s groggy as hell, and Susan immediately begins cuddling him. Baker’s off to Cornwall alone because of reasons, and Susan says she has to stay in London. David gives Baker a hip flask (because booze will presumably help), and everyone wishes everyone else luck. Then Baker walks right into a Dalek patrol and is killed. Shit.

BUT ENOUGH OF THAT, FOR NOW IT IS TIME FOR BABS AND JENNY TO RUN ACROSS LONDON WITH A WHEELCHAIR WHILE DALEKS TRUNDLE ABOUT ALL OVER WESTMINSTER. THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR HOW AWESOME THIS ENTIRE SEQUENCE IS AND HOW MUCH I LOVE THE LOCATION SHOOTING IN THIS SERIAL SO HERE ARE SOME GIFS.

Also, enormous kudos to Jacqueline Hill and Ann Davies for doing all that sprinting at arse o’clock in the morning. Also, DRUMS.

So they arrive at the Transport Museum, and there are those fabulous ‘VETOED’ signs everywhere (seriously, find me a better post-apocalyptic London and I will be a monkey’s aunty) and Babs is quizzing Dortmun about various plot points. Basically, the bomb was meant to eat away the Dalekanium shells, but they’re not mining for Dalekanium, and nobody really know’s what they’re digging for, they just dig-dig-dig-a-dig-dig.

Jenny explains that the VETOED signs mean some of the resistance have moved off to the south coast, and that she doesn’t blame them, and that they were very lucky to get across London unseen.

Babs is making tea, because of course, and OH I retract everything I said about Babs being increasingly irresponsible because then this happens:

JENNY: We haven't got a chance in London, the way things are building up.
BARBARA: Well, what can we do? Where can we go? Anyway, what's the point in running away all the time? 

JENNY: I'm not running, I'm surviving, that's all.

And this is what I meant when I said you could also read Jenny as a pre-Barbara Doctor as well as being a post-apocalyptic Babs. And Barbara, like David (and Ian, actually) is very much a ‘fight the world you’re in’ sort of character this week.

And OH this scene just gets better and better. Babs wishes the Doctor were here, and so does Dortmun, because of Science, and it transpires she’s been asking herself ‘what would the Doctor do?’ and has come to the conclusion that he would 100% go straight to where the trouble is head for the mine. I know she’s wrong because he’s recovering from his brush with robotisation, but boy does she know him well. Then Jenny pipes up and reveals her ignorance of the Rules of Doctor Who by suggesting that the Doctor may not in fact be alive (and upsets Babs in the process):

Well, he sort of does, narratively speaking. Dortmun, in a rare moment of sensitivity, sends Jenny outside to keep watch, and tells Babs that she’s not callous really, she’s just dealing with fighting the Daleks in her own way. Which is what I love about Jenny: she’s flawed, and it’s not gendered.

Anyhoo, Dortmun wants Babs to find the Doctor and give him his notes. Something is afoot, because he wants Babs to keep hold of them for him. Babs says she’s not leaving him, and he says they should head for the mine, and that she should ‘round up’ Jenny. Charming.

Clearly Babs and Jenny are having a heart to heart out there, because Dortmun has time to pick up his sticks and wheel himself offscreen. Enter Babs and Jenny, who wonder where he’s gone, hope he wouldn’t be so stupid as to go outside, and notice he’s left his notes behind.

Oh and he is that stupid. He’s wheeled himself outdoors and is yelling for the Daleks who face him across the rubble. He gets up, staggers forwards, and is exterminated as he lobs the new improved bomb…which still doesn’t seem to have worked.

Jenny freaks out and tries to run to him, but Babs pulls her back (apparently Jacqueline Hill assured Ann Davies she could go for broke because she would properly restrain her—thank you, special features!) and they hide, badly, behind a milk float.

Enter a Dalek, who, in a rare moment of comic relief, attempts to interrogate a headless dummy, calling it ‘subcultural’. Ouch.

*poke*

But seriously, how does the Dalek not spot them?

Back in the ruins, Susan is helping the Doctor to walk again, and talks about the numbness wearing off, which is sort of funny but not funny-ha-ha because of the whole ‘Billy suffered temporary paralysis when an extra dropped him earlier in the filming’ incident.

Anyway, the Doctor attempts to reassert his authority over the situation, telling Susan he essentially gives zero fucks about what David says because he’s in charge and they should go back to the Tardis. Susan disagrees. Then this happens:

DOCTOR: Do you question my authority, child? 

SUSAN: No, Grandfather, it's not that at all. It's just that David says—

DOCTOR: You seem to place more reliance on that young man's word than mine, don't you?
SUSAN: Oh, Grandfather, it's not that. It's simply that he lives in this time. He understands the situation.

Urgh that Susan isn’t just sticking up for herself but rather substituting one man’s authority for another, but I do like that what seems to be bugging her most is the question of time, and respecting the authority of those who live in whatever happens to be the here and now. More conflict on this theme, please, and while we’re at it perhaps more of this in Doctor Who in general in order to combat the Doctor’s ongoing Gallifreyan Saviour complex (albeit one somewhat mitigated by Capaldi’s recent ‘I am an idiot’ epiphany).

But then something gorgeous happens: the Doctor listens to Susan. In a hilarious little buttering-up-the-grandfather-in-law scene, a breathless David arrives to inform them of Daleks being, well, everywhere, and asks the Doctor’s advice as ‘the senior member of the party’. I will never not appreciate how much William Hartnell relishes playing the Doctor when he’s being vain. The Doctor essentially tells David they should do exactly what Susan says David says they should do, but makes out like it’s his idea, and then makes a point of being faux gracious to David by saying it’s only a suggestion and David should think it out for himself. Susan’s face is a picture as she tells him she thinks that’s a very good idea, and humours him with a cuddle. Boy has she outgrown him. I live for this dynamic. Well done, everyone.

Meanwhile, Ian and his new chum Larry are having the chats underneath the floor tiles. Larry tells Ian his brother Phil reckons if they can find out what the Daleks are up to, they might be able to beat them, which Ian thinks makes sense. Larry’s brother also thinks the Daleks want the magnetic core of Earth. Which makes less sense.

Anyway, the Daleks have landed and are disembarking (WHEEEEEEE!) with the Robomen behind them, and Ian and Larry take the opportunity to get out of their hidey-hole. (Iffy camera shot is iffy.) Larry, who is the most cheery, adorable chappie ever, suggests they exit via the rubbish chute. Ian asks what’s out there; a gleeful Larry tells him he has no idea, and goes first. I love Larry.

Back in the outdoor ruiny bits, Susan reckons they ought to wait just five minutes more before moving, which is convenient, because some Robomen have just arrived…TO LAY A LARGE TICKING BOMB RIGHT BY THEM.

OH RUDDY CRIPES WILL THE GALLIFREYANS AND THEIR WOULD-BE NEW RECRUIT TO THE FAM BE EXPLODERATED? WHAT WILL BABS AND JENNY DO NOW? WILL IAN AND LARRY HAVE MADCAP ADVENTURES IN THE DALEK MINES? WILL THE SPACE FAM EVER BE REUNITED?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? With flying colours.

Is the gaze problematic? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? Nope.

Save the girl or save the world? Whose decision is it? N/A.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? Nope. And there's a lot of running.

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? Nope.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Nope, this week the men still need rescuing.

Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Well, there is a lot of fighting and running and everyone being in peril, but there are no women being gratuitously menaced this week.

Does a woman have to deal with a sexual predator? Nope.

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

Does a woman faint at the sight of peril/horror or generally lose consciousness (discounting normal sleep)? Nope.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? No. Though Susan does have to bury her face in David's biceps when she hears an extra being murdered by Daleks. Which isn't minor, but still, face-burying.

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 complicit, which infuriates me. Why on Earth didn't they tell Barbara that Ian and the Doctor were at the heliport? What did they think she was going to do? Have a fit of the vapours and find herself incapable of bowling overarm? Also Dortmun.

Does a woman suffer in silence (to further the plot)? Nope.

Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? No, but there's plenty of general ridiculing of Susan from the Doctor when she dares to spout the views of a man other than him.

Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? Dortmun talks over Jenny when she starts talking about how the Doctor could well be dead.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? Yup. Susan.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? Nope.

Is a man shamed into doing/not doing something because the alternative is a woman doing/not doing something? A little bit when Tyler pours cold water on Dortmun's continued bomb-making plans.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? Not strictly speaking, no.

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? Not exactly, as Susan is in fact coming up with David's theory, but it is still ridiculed by the Doctor. This is all in the service of making it look like Susan's ready to fly the nest, and the Doctor is clearly meant to be in the wrong, but still, it's there.

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? Yes. Susan. But then she fluffs him up.

Does a woman get to be a badass? And how.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Nope. 

Is there past/future/alien sexism? Yup. David tells Jenny to take the women back to base while he goes to raid the saucer.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? Jenny responds to all this nonsense by trying to rally Barbara and Susan by spilling the beans about who's imprisoned in the saucer.

Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? David and Susan have definite sexual tension.

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

Verdict

God I love this episode. Those location shots. The Babs and Jenny Show. Guerrilla warfare. Character development chats. Ian, bless him, has very little to do and is mostly being cute making friends on flying saucers, and the Doctor is out for the count for a lot of the time, but Babs and Susan get a decent outing, and there's plenty of action to be had. I don't hate David quite as much this week, even though he has his moments of being a dick. His conversation with Susan in which she starts to rethink her Gallifreyan Saviour Complex is a highlight, even if it's just a thinly-veiled excuse to get them to make goo-goo eyes at each other. Next week I think may be the one with the truck, which is obviously one of my all-time favourite moments, so let's hope there's as much to chew over in the non-truck-related scenes as there was this week. Also, it's good to be back.