Series 2 Episode 3: Crisis

Serial: Planet of Giants
Episode: 3 (Crisis)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Louis Marks
Director: Mervyn Pinfield
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 15/11/1964

FIGHT THE WORLD YOU'RE IN (and other stories)

In which Very Important Scenes are cut from two episodes to make one travesty of an episode that ought to have been a landmark moment in the show.

So. Crisis! Let this unholy mashup of two episodes commence!

As I mentioned in the recap of the first episode of this serial, I’m going to be sticking to episode three as broadcast, unless watching the reconstructed episodes three and four throws up any gems OR INDEED SCENES THAT ARE CRUCIAL TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENTIRE SHOW, in which case I’ll mention it. Otherwise I’m not going to bother summarising cut scenes, as many of them are boring as hell and have no giant plugholes in them. Also, you should be warned that there is a LOT of caps lock going on this week.

(Also, I watched the reconstructions after having done the review, so there may be some...er...inconsistencies of tone and trajectory where I talk about the cut scenes. I've tried to go back over it to iron it out, but if this week's review feels like a bit of a hodgepodge, that's why.)

Anyway, Susan and the Doctor are about to be drownded because they’re hiding in the sink and the murderous scientist washing his hands of his deeds is about to pull the plug. Quick! Into the overflow pipe!

Back on the workbench, Babs reckons the Space Fam must indeed be drowned; Ian, because he doesn’t have x-ray vision, determines to find out.

Cut Scene of Interest: the cat drank some water and died, and the Space Baes go into morbid detail describing its dead body. R.I.P., Jurassic Cat.

As they both climb back down into the surprisingly dry sink, Ian tells Babs she needn’t come if she doesn’t want to, but when indeed has that ever stopped Barbara Wright doing a thing?

I should also warn you at this point that I once again have the InfoText on, which informs me that there was a retake of Ian and Barbara climbing down the plug chain because Jacqueline Hill’s hand was in shot before she climbed down. Whoops. But the important thing is that they actually came into shot from a stepladder off-camera, which gives me funny pictures in my head.

Ok, so here’s the first scene that ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CUT, because in it Barbara and Ian discuss what they would do if the Doctor and Susan really were dead:

Barbara: What do we do? I mean, that’s it, what can we do?
Ian: Go on living. Fight the world we’re in. Make something of it.
Barbara: You never give in, do you?
Ian: If it were only me…
Barbara: It wouldn’t be any different.

ARGH this really, really shouldn’t have been cut, because it gives us a little window into Ian’s head that was sorely needed round about the time he thought all his friends were dead in The Reign of Terror and threw himself into the English spy ring subplot rather than allowing himself even a moment (well, an onscreen moment anyway) to mourn the apparent death of Babs, Susan, and the Doctor. It also makes sense of what I thought was an odd choice for Ian given his mostly left-leaning political stance: when all else is lost, you just fight the world you’re in. And actually, despite Ian’s implied protest that the only reason he never gives in is essentially for Babs’s benefit, we’ve already seen that fighting the world he’s in is exactly what he does when he thinks in is only him left in it. (But seriously, why was this cut? JUSTICE FOR IAN’S CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.) Also, though obviously I’m delighted that the Doctor and Susan aren’t drowned, a small (ok, a large) part of me would like to see a spinoff in which Barbara and Ian become Borrower-sized superheroes, fighting injustice and saving the planet from deadly chemical weapons with a reel of cotton and some paperclips. Like The Girl Who Waited, but with teeny-tiny sixties schoolteachers.

Babs, Babs, Babs of the Plughole, strong as she can be!

Anyway, in the broadcast version, of the episode, Babs and Ian only momentarily believe their friends are dead, and Babs’s somewhat panicky ‘what do we do…what can we do?’ is cut short by Susan and the Doctor in full-on troll mode gloating over how difficult they are to kill. Everyone is delighted and the Space Fam is reunited and oh it is lovely indeed. Though there is an even lovelier (cut) moment in the plughole where the Doctor jokes about the Space Baes planning their lives without them. He knows those fuss-pots so well.

Oh and here’s another crucial yet inexplicably cut scene: the humans reckon no government in their right minds would ever put an insecticide like this on the market, and there’s nothing they can do about it, so they may as well scarper. And then there’s this gorgeous little meta moment from the Doctor that grows into something HUGELY IMPORTANT:

Doctor: Our roles seem to be reversed for once.
Barbara: What do you mean?
Doctor: Aren’t I usually the one to condemn meddling? To urge that we leave well alone? But you see, my friends, this isn’t just a minor little tragedy in some forgotten backwater. Some person has invented a way of destroying a planet. Totally destroying it. I cannot, will not, stand by an allow a whole planet to be emptied of life.
Barbara: But Doctor, we’re one inch high. What can we do like this?
Doctor: At the moment, I don’t know, but we’ll find something. Let us start from one basic premise and hold on to it with all our determination: we will stop this chemical from being spread all over the world.

OH MY DAYS WHY OH WHY OH WHY OH WHY OH WHYYYYYYYY DID THEY CUT THIS? This is the first time in the history of the show that the Doctor actually draws a line and decides that this, THIS RIGHT HERE, is what he will fight for. This is where he takes a stand. That he will not sit idly by and allow a planet to be destroyed. It also explains why the hell they all keep wandering about on the workbench instead of just getting back to the ship. Some idiot cut the beating heart out of this serial and I shall never forgive them. Plus the fact that the Doctor has actually put his foot down and rallied the (very reluctant) troops to save the world makes Barbara’s continued infuriating silence on the subject of her IMMINENT DEATH more understandable, in that it suggests that from this moment on she’s hoping they manage to foil the baddies and still make it back to the Tardis in time to effect a miracle cure. Even though, as we shall see, the Doctor is ultimately ok with her choosing to risk her life to give them all a chance to try to save the planet.

(I should also take this opportunity to note that they guy doing the William Hartnell impersonation for the cut scenes is phenomenal and should have many prank phone calls with Culshaw!Four.)

We skip back over to Forester and Smithers. Forester is planning to ring the murdered Farrow’s department and impersonate him. What could possibly go wrong? We go to what appears to be a rural post office, where the woman operating the telephone switchboard is hilariously un-fooled by Forester’s muffled voice (courtesy of a handkerchief over the mouthpiece). Though the guy Farrow works with is totally conned.

(I do feel a bit bad skipping over the cut scenes at the switchboard, as Hilda the operator basically saves the day by being nosey and not being idiotic enough to believe that Forester talking through a hanky is actually Mr. Farrow. But life is short, and these cut scenes are long. Hilda, you're great, and you deserve more time than I'm giving you.)

We cut to a giant notebook that has chemistry things in it. Susan spots that it’s a formula, and Ian tells her she’s right. IAN, REMEMBER THAT THIS YOUNG WOMAN IS CLEVERER THAN YOU. Babs reckons that if it’s the formula for the insecticide, they might be able to find a cure. Ian is, however, almost aggressively dismissive: ‘A cure? What’s the good of that?’ Barbara, instead of taking this opportunity to mention that she is dying, plays it casual: ‘I dunno…’

Susan channels her inner Audrey Horne

TELL THEM YOU ARE DYING, BARBARA, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY.

Going back to that cut scene for a moment, you do forget that in Classic Who in the very early days, it’s not just the normal thing for the gang to discover something amiss and to take it upon themselves to right a wrong. There has to be something in it for Team Tardis before they’ll meddle. Which is why none of these scenes by the notebook make any sense without that earlier scene in which the Doctor puts his foot down.

Ian reckons if they’re going to do anything at all they should stop the insecticide (a bit of dialogue that makes no sense without the aforementioned decision to meddle); as Susan points out, they only need a cure if someone’s infected. LIKE BARBARA. How has nobody spotted she’s ill yet? The Doctor reckons the more they know about their enemy, the better, so he gets Ian to mark out sections of the notebook with his feet while Barbara and Susan read what they see, so that the Doctor can write down what’s written there on a smaller scale. Just to reiterate: the Doctor is using Ian as a bookmark in this scene.

There’s some cut material in which they read out shit from the notebook followed by yet more cut switchboard shenanigans, and then the Doctor has the formula. Ian is rather sweet trying to understand it, but then admits that he’s reached his Sciency limit. It’s ok, hun, you don’t need to be a specialist in insecticides to teach O Level Chemistry. What is Ian’s specialism, anyway?

A less-than-captive audience

The Doctor takes over in layman’s terms: the inventor has made the insecticide EVERLASTING. Which, as Susan and Ian point out, means it’ll get into the soil and the water and stuff. Babs asks whether it’ll be fatal to humans; the Doctor says yes, in sufficient quantities. She asks whether that’s just from ingesting it, but the Doctor reckons that contact with the skin will also do it. SHIT. Ian rubs it in a bit, going on about it penetrating the skin and all that, and Babs, WHO HAS BEEN IN CONTACT WITH THE INSECTICIDE AND IS DYING, stamps her foot and demands why they’re all just sitting here.

Ian and Susan stare at her, and Susan at last asks whether she’s all right. Babara, FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN TO MAKE THE VIEWER TENSE (if we're talking about the broadcast version rather than the uncut version, at least) still doesn’t tell anyone she’s been in contact with the insecticide, but mentions she feels giddy and tells them some bullshit about just being hungry. The Doctor raises the issue of food (which they can’t eat) and Ian reckons the less they talk about food the happier he’ll be. Looks like someone is prone to hanger. Ian volunteers to go and fetch safe tap water for everyone, but the Doctor also wants to go in the direction of the sink on account of there being something over there that may be the answer to all their problems—A TELEPHONE. (Which will be useless to them on account of the sound thing he was explaining last week.)

A cut scene explains that the Doctor wonders whether the sound thing will be the same over a load of telephone wires. In another cut scene, they are all nearly choked by Smithers lighting a cigarette and blowing smoke all over them. Which would have been a cool thing to keep in an environmental serial.

The gang makes it to the telephone, and Babs and Susan have found a bung (or a cork?) from some of the Sciency equipment to prop up the receiver; Babs, looking knackered now, has been doing the heavy lifting. At last Ian seems to have noticed that all is not well with the now distinctly-out-of-breath Bae; possibly because the others are watching, she tells him not to make a fuss. And it’s adorable. Although…

…BARBARA. FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME. INFORMING YOUR COMPANIONS THAT YOU ARE DYING IS NOT MAKING A FUSS, IT IS GIVING THEM ENOUGH TIME TO PREVENT YOUR UNTIMELY DEMISE.

Ian is making his confused puppy face, but has clearly decided that maybe these are Lady Things that require his discretion and pulls himself together, and ‘tactfully’ suggesting that he and Susan do the climbing up to the telephone as he, the Doctor, and Susan pass the bung upwards; Babs sits at the foot of the telephone with her head in her hands. The Doctor, however, gives zero fucks, and merely asks Barbara (politely) whether she minds getting another one of the bungs; she nods and staggers off. He watches her go with some concern, and when Barbara returns, the Doctor observes that his dear looks very tired; she agrees, and he suggests she go and sit down for a bit. Which is considerate. But SERIOUSLY this is not like Barbara at all, so can someone please ask her whether she’s been in touch with anything deadly?

Once the bungs/corks are up at the top of the telephone, Ian calls the others up to give him a hand with his Atlas act, attempting to heave the world receiver onto his shoulders. As Susan and the Doctor come up, the Doctor asks Ian whether he reckons the three of them can manage, seeing as Barbara doesn’t look quite up to it. I feel like I am forever bringing this up, but I do love that the Doctor now has her back completely, in contrast to his willingness to leave her to die in an alien city. Ian sounds disgruntled, saying they’ll try, but Barbara seems determined to overcompensate for DYING and scrambles over to help; she, Ian, and the Doctor lift up the receiver while Susan wedges a cork under it. They’re all knackered…AND NOW THE OTHER END! Barbara looks bloody shattered, but she’ll get no sympathy (ok, marginally less sympathy) from me because she’s still being stoical FOR NO GOOD REASON (in the broadcast version at least yadda yadda you get my point that cutting that earlier scene in which the Doctor takes a stand means that Barbara's motivation for this entire serial is a nonsense).

And OH SUCCESS! The switchboard has been alerted! Ian, Susan, and the Doctor bellow into the receiver very slowly, but ugh I don’t even have time to explain. The Doctor has forgotten his own lecture about how they’re probably audible only to dogs, and the whole thing is bloody pointless. Barbara listens to the unintelligible rumbling coming from the other end with an expression on her face that clearly states ‘FML’.

And then she collapses again. BARBARA, YOU ARE LITERALLY DYING. YOU NEED TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS. Who have not noticed that she has collapsed. Indeed, Ian is sulking: ‘We can’t have failed after trying so hard!’ he wails. The Doctor and Susan are resigned, but Ian is determined to try again and goes off to tell Barbara…who is still kneeling on the floor, shaving attempted to blow her nose with Ian’s handkerchief. Ian does not find this fucking weird but merely tells her she’s been overdoing things and offers to get her some water. He reaches for his handkerchief, and Babs goes all Gollum on him, becoming increasingly distressed as she insists that he mustn’t touch it, that no-one must touch it; she passes out.

Everyone crowds around, and the Doctor finally twigs, holding the handkerchief to his nose via some manner of stick and comments on the aroma of insecticide. WHICH CANNOT BE THAT DISTINCTIVE OR YOU WOULD HAVE REALISED BABS PROBABLY REEKS OF IT. The Doctor surmises she got insecticide on her hands, and Ian is hilariously indignant and defensive, seeing as she never told him and he never saw her do it; his entire attitude is essentially ‘DAAAAAD IT’S NOT MY FAULT’. And then the penny drops; she did borrow his handkerchief over by the seeds. Sheepish Ian is sheepish.

Susan asks whether they can do anything for her, and the Doctor muses in silence…ROLL CREDITS. Or not. Babs wakes, is informed she fainted, and mutters about the insecticide…FINALLY OH MY GOD. The Doctor chides her indulgently like an idiot child. Which is what she has indeed been this serial (blah blah if you cut that scene blah-de-blah). For which I will never forgive Louis Marks. Or at least the dunderhead who cut that scene.

As Babs chills with Susan by the phone, panicky Ian asks the Doctor what they can do; the Doctor says she has to get back to her normal size, at which point the insecticide will be 70x less dangerous.

I HAVE (slightly gross) QUESTIONS: even if it’s less dangerous, the inventor made it everlasting, so assuming she manages to…er…get it out of her system, I hope the Tardis waste disposal can deal with it, or else there will be a teeny-tiny amount of deadly insecticide in the Tardis water supply forever.

Anyway, they must get back to the ship; ‘what are we waiting for?’ asks Ian, grimly. He makes his way over to Babs and adopts his best bedside manner; Babs says she feels ‘a bit ropey’. I heart understatements. Anyway, they’ve got a long way to go, so best get moving. Ian asks the Doctor whether he can in fact get them back to normal size:

Brim-full of confidence, there, Doctor.

Meanwhile, Forester is having trouble with the phone, which is obv still off the hook. But enough of that.

We go back to the regulars and another scene that should never, ever have been cut because without it, nothing makes sense:

Ian: Well, come on, Barbara!
Barbara: No, Ian, I won’t go any further.
Ian: Barbara! Don’t be ridiculous!
Doctor: Yes, you’re being stupid. Wasting time.
Susan: Come on, Barbara, please!
Barbara: No! For the last time, no! I’m not important any more, can’t you understand?
Susan: You’re important to us, Barbara.
Barbara: Will you listen? The amount I’ve got on my hands would be just a tiny speck to a normal human being, but suppose a full-sized person covered their hands with it? Aren’t they going to start feeling dizzy, start fainting and blacking out?
Susan: You won’t die. Barbara, we’re here with you now. That’s all we can see or understand.
Doctor: Yes, I couldn’t let it happen. Not if there was one chance in a million of stopping it.
Ian: Doctor, for heaven’s sake, make her see how wrong she is.
Barbara: You said yourself it was our duty to stop the destruction of a whole planet.
Doctor: Yes, I did, Barbara, but our immediate concern is you.
Barbara: Our responsibility hasn’t altered, Doctor.
Ian: The longer we stand here arguing, the greater hold that poison is going to get on you. We are taking you back to the ship, and that’s final.
Barbara: How? Carry me over your shoulder? All the way down the chain to the sink and then down the pipe to the outside of the house? You couldn’t. Even with my cooperation.

NYAAAAARGJSSPDOISLTKEUWKRJFHSDNJKJHSDHFSDJF WHY DID YOU CUT THIS YOU ARTLESS BASTARDS!?!?!?!?! The only—and I mean only—reason you can even begin to attempt to justify putting Babs through all that idiotic ‘secretly dying’ bullshit is by NOT CUTTING both this scene and the scene in which the Doctor picks his battles. With these scenes in place, of course the problem remains that she is being used as a plot device to a) rack up the dramatic tension and b) make the 'to intervene or not to intervene' dilemma personal. I mean, I think this is the first time 'save the girl or save the world' crops up in the show. However, what you also get is Actual Character Development that makes this entire serial crucial to the development of the show itself rather than an entertaining but otherwise pointless romp through various cool-looking sets.

And apart from anything else, this scene is actually pretty good for what it is. Even the Doctor calling Barbara stupid (which would normally piss me off) actually works because a) it puts me in mind of the time Barbara yelled at him for being a stupid old man, setting the scene for another epic argument in which Babs challenges him to be a better person and b) because his initial knee-jerk reaction is one that is entirely based on fear, so he insults and belittles her, but then he actually listens to what she has to say and she convinces him of her point of view. The Doctor, Ian, and Susan are absolutely shitting themselves because they really don't want Barbara to die, but Babs digs her heels in like a pro and everyone's so in character it hurts. The way in which Ian reverts to paternalistic bullshit to mask his fear has never been more evident: the foot is down, but Barbara isn't having any of it, and BOY does she hit him where it hurts. He may be able to fireman's lift her out of the way of a giant fly, but he couldn't carry her back to the ship if he tried, and she categorically will not consent to it and refuses point blank to cooperate, making it perfectly clear that the only way she's going back to the ship is kicking and screaming. The sooner Ian realises that Barbara Wright has never done anything just because he said so, the happier he'll be.

Susan, meanwhile, is right on the money with her analysis: Barbara is important to them, and they're all being blinded by their immediate priority of not letting her die, which is 'all we can see or understand'; Susan is her own best therapist. But the best thing about this is Barbara and the Doctor, in a clear development of their conversation about not getting swept away with the tide of history in The Reign of Terror. Though I maintain that Barbara's willingness to sacrifice herself for the greater good marks the beginning of a bothersome trend that culminates in the whole Impossible Girl who was Born to Save the Doctor thing (which DOES MY HEAD IN), the first time this sort of thing happens on the show the fact that Barbara holds the Doctor to his own moral standards is a meaty consequence of her own actions (and her own realisation that there is something she is literally willing to die for). Her raison d'être isn't to give her life to allow the Doctor to become his best self because she thinks he's some sort of godlike entity, she just happens to change him for the better while she travels with him and learns about herself (through learning about others). And she absolutely floors him when he tells her he wouldn't let her die if there was a one in a million chance of preventing it and she tells him that none of this alters their responsibilities. Indeed, when Ian appeals to the Patriarchy Doctor to make Barbara see she's wrong (like that would ever work), it backfires spectacularly because what she does is make the Doctor see she's right.

I mean I'm still mad at this whole 'Barbara is dying but doesn't tell anyone' subplot, and as I say, putting Babs in danger specifically so the Team gets put into a 'save someone you love or save the world' dilemma is the thin end of a very problematic wedge, but with this scene in place at least Babs gets to spend a little more time having the moral high ground for her trouble. And at least it's her dilemma, too (rather than her fate being the Doctor's choice, as it so often is in later serials), in which she actually has her own agency after a fashion.

BUT THEY CUT ALL THAT, so what we get instead is Ian talking into Barbara’s face, telling her she’s ill and that they have to get her back to the ship. When Barbara appears to refuse, Ian appeals to the Doctor (again), who OH MY GOODNESS tells him there’s nothing he can say, dear boy, because Barbara’s quite right. Ian appeals to Susan, who breaks my heart again when she merely cuddles her stoic Space Mum. The camera focuses on Ian’s referred pain as Babs comes up behind him and tells him they must stop the baddies. And as broadcast, it makes zero fucking sense.

The butchery that has been done to this serial makes me hopping mad.

Meanwhile, Forester decides to try the other phone, while Smithers goes off to look at Farrow’s notes.

But enough of that! Because the Doctor has a plan, and that plan is…CAUSE TROUBLE. Start a fire, to be precise. Ian seems to think this will work, but wants to know if they’ll be able to start a really big one to do some real damage. Then this happens:

GLEEFUL ARSONIST DOCTOR IS THE BEST.

Ian asks Barbara for her opinion; she agrees it’ll attract people to the house, and OH MORBID SUSAN HOW I’VE MISSED YOU! For at this point our favourite little weirdo delightedly points out that someone will find the man’s body. Never change.

Smithers and Forester wander about outside a bit.

And OH Ian has had a brainwave! Which I’ll give him, seeing as how he teaches in a Science lab. If they can only turn on the gas tap…but oh no that’ll have to wait because NOISES OFF!

Enter the bad guys. Apparently you can see the dead cat prop in this bit, too.

As our heroes sneak about, the switchboard gets back in touch. During this time, apparently Smithers freaks out about the dead cat and no longer believes Forester’s bullshit, but all that got cut. Anyway, the switchboard lady (Hilda) asks to speak to Farrow, and Forester tries the same bullshit hanky trick again. Which fails to convince Hilda in any way, shape or form, as she gleefully tells Bert the policeman (who also happens to be present). Bert the policeman reckons he ought to go and see what’s up. Which means that Hilda at the switchboard pretty much alerted the world to the dodgy goings-on at the farmhouse and that Team Tardis could have just scarpered back to the Tardis to de-poison Barbara. But that’s not the point, is it?

Over at the gas tap, the Team is trying to turn it on. And OH HELLO MATCHBOX AND MATCHSTICK. Reusable props for the win. Ian has wedged the matchbox in place, and gets Susan to help him light the match by running at it. ‘Like a battering ram,’ enthuses Susan. I have missed this.

Meanwhile, the Doctor has managed to get a pressurised container in front of the gas tap, which he has to explain to Babs, who apparently can’t read the giant writing that says ‘highly flammable’ on the side. Then this happens:

LET ME LOVE YOU. Though if it really is going to be the equivalent of a thousand pound bomb to them surely they need to find a better way of avoiding the blast than hiding behind the gas tap.

And oh, Smithers has finally figured out that DN6 kills literally everything. Which he apparently didn’t realise while he was making the stuff. He is a terrible Scientist.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Barbara are being armchair critics and Susan and Ian attempt to light the match. ‘CHARGE!’ cries Susan. But seriously, never change.

Success! The Doctor and Barbara cling with delight, presumably infecting the Doctor with insecticide from her riddled hands. Ian shouts a few instructions for adjusting the gas tap, tells Barbara and the Doctor to hide behind the tap, and he and Susan light the gas tap!

Elsewhere, Forester is confessing to Smithers. He also has his gun out. Nobody cares.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is tittering gleefully at the imminent explosion. As the gas tap blazes, the team huddles, and Ian warns Susan about metal flying everywhere; Susan is reminded of an air raid. According to the InfoText, this isn’t a reference to the Blitz but to WWI, where Germans used Zeppelins for air raids, which the Doctor terms ‘infernal machines’. Give me the Doctor and Susan in a WWI historical THIS INSTANT. Susan seems to think of this as a happy memory. Because that’s how Susan rolls.

As Smithers enters, protesting about DN6 being more deadly than radiation, we see what the soon-to-explode container is. Well bugger me if it isn’t a spray can of insecticide! Poetic justice! But also probably very dangerous to the time travellers if it’s going to be exploding everywhere. IN FORESTER’S FACE! LITERALLY! Is he blinded, or does he actually have DN6 all up in his eyeballs? Nobody cares. But Smithers has now got the gun…which is taken off him by Bert the Bobby from the switchboard. THE LAW HAS BEEN ALERTED, ALL IS WELL.

The Doctor sends everyone running back to the ship. Well, he gets Susan and Ian to drag Babs along at any rate. The Doctor also takes one of the giant Sugar Puffs with him under his cape. That'll be easy to get back to the Tardis. Then again, there's always gravity.

The Bobby tells Smithers to turn off the gas tap, and justice presumably takes its course.

Back in the Tardis (after what I’m going to guess was a long, difficult, and generally hellish journey during which one can only assume they just threw Barbara down the drainpipe and hoped for the best), there’s more cut stuff in which Ian fusses over Babs, and the Doctor has to repair the scanner before they get back to normal or else they’d be blind. Back to uncut stuff, the Doctor aims to replicate whatever happened when they landed. Or something timey-wimey like that. Ian asks whether there’s anything he can do; why yes, he can wrap that seed in the Doctor’s cloak and put it on the table where everyone can see for maximum theatricality.

Oh and apparently William Russell had the lurgy whilst filming this episode. Thanks, InfoText.

Babs is pretty-much unconscious in the chair as Susan stares at her in morbid fascination concern. The lights go down, the Tardis dematerialises, and as Ian badgers the Doctor, the latter gleefully informs him that whatever it is is working! Joy! The seed on the table is shrinking! How does that make sense? I have no idea! But the seed is now teeny-tiny, and JOY OF JOYS Barbara is awake and in desperate need of a drink. Of water. Which she had no idea could taste so good. The Doctor delightedly pets Barbara’s face, as is the way of all Gallifreyans when confronted with pestilence. Ian is relieved; the Doctor bows theatrically. The Doctor recaps the plot for Barbara’s benefit and then sends everyone off for a good scrub.

Gallifreyan nursing at its finest

Alone in the Tardis control room, the Doctor remembers the scanner is buggered and fusses over how irritating it is that they have no idea where they are. Maybe they’re…AT WORLD’S END!

WHERE HAVE OUR HEROES LANDED NOW? WILL THERE NOW BE DN6 IN THE TARDIS WATER SUPPLY FOREVER? WHAT ARE THE TARDIS SCRUBBING FACILITIES LIKE? CAN WE PLEASE NEVER MAKE BARBARA STUPID JUST SO WE CAN SPIN OUT A SERIAL EVER, EVER AGAIN (OR INDEED A PLOT DEVICE IN A MORAL DILEMMA, DEPENDING ON WHICH VERSION OF THIS EPISODE/THESE EPISODES YOU'RE WATCHING)? LIKEWISE IAN? WHY HAS NOBODY ADDRESSED THE FACT THAT THEY ACTUALLY MADE IT HOME BUT WERE THE WRONG SIZE APART FROM IN PASSING? IS THE SCANNER NOW PERMANENTLY BUST? WHAT HAPPENS TO SMI- ACTUALLY I DON’T REALLY CARE BUT WERE THE CREATORS/ABUSERS OF DN6 EVER BROUGHT TO JUSTICE?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Errrm...do Babs and Susan actually exchange words this week? I think not, actually. Or only in passing.

Is the gaze problematic? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? Nope. High necks and dungarees all round.

Save the girl or save the world? Whose decision is it? Save the world. Barbara's decision, backed up by the Doctor.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? See collapsing.

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

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? No.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Babs needs saving from poison.

Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Yup. Babs is now dying.

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)? Yes. Babs collapses.

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? Nope, this week it's Babs not letting on.

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

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? A bit.

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

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

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. Though Babs does dig her heels in about the Doctor's plan. And the arson is Ian's doing/the Doctor's brainchild.

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? Babs yells him down over sticking to his responsibilities.

Does a woman get to be a badass? Babs.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Yes and no...the Doctor has the final word, but Ian is mostly floundering and Babs is the one who insists the remain to help.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? It's the present day, so N/A. 

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

Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? N/A.

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

Verdict

Well. As broadcast, this episode does my head in, because it makes very little sense and robs Babs of agency/believable motivation. They cut scenes that are crucial to Ian's character development, the Doctor's character development, and Barbara's character development, and I shall never forgive them. I remain irritated that Babs got infected with DN6 specifically to engineer a 'save the girl or save the world' dilemma, but with the cut scenes reinstated, we at least get to see pivotal moments in the history of the show: the first time the Team chooses to intervene for moral reasons rather than making getting out of Dodge their main priority;,the first time the Doctor takes a stand, and the first time a companion is willing to die for something bigger than themselves. And that something is not the Doctor's life, as is so often the case in New Who. The Doctor is delightful this week, as is his relationship with Babs, and I am delighted at the return of Morbid Susan. Next week...DALEKS!

Series 2 Episode 2: Dangerous Journey

Serial: Planet of Giants
Episode: 2 (Dangerous Journey)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Louis Marks
Director: Mervyn Pinfield
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 08/11/1964

SWEET THUMBELINA DON'T BE GLUM (and other stories)

In which the Doctor does empathy and climbs up a drainpipe, Susan is endearing but doesn't know about acoustics, the teachers don't like rollercoasters, Babs is dying but won't tell anyone she's dying because apparently this week they made her a fucking idiot, and Ian fails to notice that something is very obviously wrong with the uncharacteristically-swooning Bae because all her uncharacteristic behaviour conforms to gender norms. But there is also a giant plughole, and I found out many things about Sugar Puffs, so je ne regrette rien.

So Team Tardis is about to be eaten by a cat.

Fortunately, cat-whisperers Ian and the Doctor have some advice for their womenfolk: don’t move, and don’t look into the cat’s eyes. What? Is that even a thing? I can’t even check whether this is a thing because ‘how to avoid being eaten by cats’ mostly turns up articles aimed at single people afraid of dying alone when you type it into Google. Maybe the Doctor is confusing cats with dinosaurs.

Anyway, the cat loses interest; perhaps it’s intending to eat the freshly-murdered Mr. Farrow instead. However, the Doctor rules out getting back to the ship just now, because cats are super-quick and he doesn’t fancy being a part of its diet. This has touched a nerve with Babs, who reckons this is getting more horrifying every moment; clearly being eaten by cats is something she, as someone whose flat (according to Ian in one of his douchier moments right at the beginning of the show) is probably full of stray animals like a sixties Disney Princess (well, she’s got the physics-defying hair for it), fears above all things. Just thought I'd bring up that little gem. What is more likely is that, as discussed in previous episodes, the relentless threat of death is starting to Bother our Babs.

Susan asks whether they ought to try communicating with the people here, but the Doctor and Ian are against it because of Science: they’ll sound like a squeak and the unshrunk humans will sound like a low growl. Barbara, however, has other fears: that they will be seen as freaks who will be put in glass cases and examined under microscopes. We seem to be learning a lot about Barbara’s phobias this week. The Doctor has another important thing to add: the people who live in this house are murderers and therefore have insane and/or criminal minds and are incapable of showing sympathy and understanding. So there. You share those Victorian attitudes to mental health, Doctor! Though to be fair, he's not wrong about the whole 'don't put your trust in murderers' thing.

Babs wonders whether they oughtn’t to do something about that there murder; the Doctor reckons they can do sod-all in their current state. But before they can get into it, a giant leg approaches—everybody run!

AND OH WE HAVE TRIPPAGE! BARBARA HAS GONE OVER ON HER ANKLE PURELY FOR THE PURPOSES OF SPLITTING UP THE GROUP. Though it should be noted that Susan tries to go back for her. Yes Susan. (As well you might, after Babs was willing to be guillotined rather than leave you behind when you were afflicted with that narratively-convenient headache.) The Doctor and Susan head over to a pipe, while Ian gets Barbara to join him in the briefcase.

Looming above the briefcase is our murderous businessman Forester, who is chatting to Smithers the Scientist, who is wearing a lab coat because he is a Scientist. He tries to tell him some cock-and-bull story about Farrow stealing the formula and accidentally shooting himself, but a brief examination of the body (which merely looks like a pen has exploded over its shirt) puts paid to that. Smithers, rather coolly, advises him not to try that shit with the police, as Farrow has clearly been shot through the heart from some feet away. No flies on Smithers. (Or on anyone, if DN6 makes it to production. Yeah I’m paying attention to the plot!)

Anyway, the reason Smithers is so unfazed by the body is because apparently he’s seen people dying of starvation all over the world, which is why he’s been developing DN6. And he’s been working crazy hours for the past year to do it, too, and is pissed off that Forester didn’t just try to bribe Farrow instead. Forester reckons he can make it look like a boating accident seeing as how Farrow was off on his French river cruise…which I seriously doubt, seeing as how the body will still have a gunshot wound in it when the police find it washed up on the Riviera. Smithers doesn’t give a shit as long as he can stop people starving to death. Which is a noble cause, but surely DN6 wouldn’t actually achieve this if what it’s really doing is causing widespread crop failure because all the pollinators have been wiped out. Anyway, Forester is going to get on with his dastardly scheme…but he’s going to take Farrow’s briefcase back into the lab first. Because of reasons.

In the lab, Ian and Babs emerge from the briefcase, looking green around the gills; Babs says it was worse than the Big Dipper. Which just adds to my ongoing ‘Barbara and Ian go to a fairground and are reminded of all sorts of fucked-up stuff from their adventures with the Doctor’ head canon. Also, I choose to believe they once went to Blackpool on a school trip in an advisory capacity and it was basically like a Willy Russell film only with Carole Ann Ford instead of a kid called Carol. Also also, Ian’s lament—‘of course it had to happen to us­—of all the places to pick, we had to choose one that was movable’—is the story of their lives. Barbara reflects ruefully that she’s bashed her knee on a large piece of metal that turns out to have been a paperclip; Barbara’s sense of the absurd continues to be prevalent.

Anyway, because she’s done her ankle in, she’d like to find some water to bathe it in. Sigh. I should note at this point that I have cruckled my ankles several times and it’s absolute agony, but seriously they could’ve found another way to get these two into the briefcase and then to the sink. Why are women’s ankles always a plot device and why do men never go over on them?

Outside, Forester and Smithers are moving the body. They take it past a drain, inside which the Doctor and Susan are lurking. Susan’s seen Forester take the briefcase, and the Doctor nearly falls down the drain when he goes over to investigate the drainpipe, which he pronounces smelly. In fact it has an awful chemical smell, which means it’s a special pipe and probably leads inside the house, and the Doctor intends to climb up it. It’s corroded so it’s got lots of handholds and footholds, and the chemical smell mean’s it’s germ-free. So no tetanus for the Gallifreyans, then, just maybe a few hideous chemical burns. Then a beautiful thing happens:

SUSAN: It's too far for you, Grandfather.
DOCTOR: Well, if it is, I shall have to give up, and I'm not going to give up before I've tried. And remember, you must think of the other two. They must be constantly reminding themselves they're only one inch high. There's only the two of us to help them.
SUSAN: All right. But you let me go first.
DOCTOR: Yes, yes, yes, go on.

YES CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! The Doctor is willing to scale a giant drainpipe full of chemicals to help his humans, despite his age and despite Susan’s protests, and is actually advocating thinking of others before thinking of oneself. I mean he doesn’t particularly care about the murder or the indiscriminate slaughter of small things all around him, but still, he now cares about literally twice as many people in the universe as he did at the beginning of the first series. Also he is actually displaying empathy here, which might be a first.

Meanwhile, back on the workbench, Ian has failed to find ankle-bathing water, but that’s ok because Babs is fine now. Apart from the shocking bruise on her knee, that is. I wonder is Barbara in some way related to Arthur Dent? Anyway, Ian wishes there’s something he could do to help her, but is it just me or is it quite nice to see them worrying about something so normal as a bumped knee? They go off exploring.

Back in the pipes, Susan is checking up on her Grandfather’s progress. Handholds and footholds or no handholds and footholds, it’s impressing that they are essentially scaling a crazy-high climbing wall without the aid of a safety harness. You go, Gallifreyans.

Meanwhile, Ian is pointing out features of interest such as Enormous Test Tubes to a politely interested Barbara. Which only adds to my ongoing collection of ‘post-Doctor Babs and Ian go on holiday’ headcanons. They come across a large pile of grain which looks to me an awful lot like giant Sugar Puffs. Which, after having consulted the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Wikipedia, I can confirm is because Sugar Puffs are in fact puffed-up grains of wheat. Which is what this is. Also, did you know that Sugar Puffs (well, Quaker Oats) helped finance the 1966 film The Dalek Invasion of Earth 2150AD? And that posters for said breakfast cereal can be seen all over the film? And that Sugar Puffs held a giveaway competition in which the grand prize was a Dalek prop from the film? WIKIPEDIA, WIKIPEDIA, WE THANK THEE FOR THIS BOON. But seriously, this is some of the best googling I’ve ever done.

Anyway, Babs doesn’t have access to Wikipedia and is clearly not a fan of Sugar Puffs, because she asks Ian whether he reckons it’s corn or wheat; Ian says wheat, so it must be true. He then turns his back for a couple of seconds while Barbara is a FUCKING IDIOT and picks up one of the grains to confirm that yes, this is wheat. Have you forgotten all about the Doctor telling the gang not to eat or drink anything (and by extension handle food and drink) because of the indiscriminate deadly insecticide, Babs? Having put it down, she realises it’s covered in sticky stuff like toffee. Maybe she’s not being dumb and actually thinks she’s come across a pile of Sugar Puffs?

Ian, however, is distracted by a book of litmus paper, and is so busy pretending to be a Shakespearean Emo mulling over how often he’s held such a piece of paper between his fingers that he doesn’t find it weird that Babs has asked for his handkerchief, nor notice that she is wiping her hands vigorously with it. Ian is also stupid this week. Having said that, it is rather poignant that Ian has found himself in his former work environment and that he is now using a book of litmus paper as a bench. The humans are bearing these insults to their reality that make it so utterly absurd rather well.

Anyway, Ian reckons that whatever is killing the insects has been sprayed onto the grain. Barbara, meanwhile, claims to have forgotten all about the Doctor’s warning about whatever killed the bugs being fatal to them, too. Because of course you’d forget something like that. Ian is so busy warning her not to touch stuff and pontificating about the distinctive aroma of the stuff that’s coating the wheat that he doesn’t notice how worried Barbara has suddenly become, how weird it is that she keeps scrubbing at her hands, OR THAT THE SMELL IS NOW ON HER AND THE HANDKERCHIEF. UGH this serial drives me crazy.

AND SHE DOESN’T TELL HIM SHE’S GOT THE DEADLY STUFF ALL OVER HER HANDS. I mean fair enough, at first it’s because he’s prattling away and not listening to her attempts to interject, BUT THEN WHEN HE'S ACTUALLY LISTENING SHE DOESN’T CONVEY VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR NO REASON AT ALL. BARBARA, I KNOW HE’S A FUSSPOT WHO WORRIES ABOUT YOU EVEN WHEN YOU’VE JUST BASHED YOUR KNEE ON A PAPERCLIP, BUT THIS IS NO TIME TO BE SO FUCKING STOICAL.

Babs is super downcast, but Ian doesn’t think this is so unusual and apparently takes this for perfectly normal despair. Even though Barbara is the kind of person who will tear a bed apart with her bare hands if there’s the slimmest chance it will help her crowbar her way out of prison. (In fairness, Babs never despairs when Susan’s around, but will occasionally get maudlin around Ian…but still, he should be more intuitive by now and know something is up.) He decides to cheer her up with blind optimism, suggesting all they need is a piece of string to get down to ground level. Then by heart breaks a bit, because Babs—automatically, it seems—corrects him, saying that at their size string is too thick, and what they need is a reel of cotton. And she catches herself. And suddenly the full ridiculousness of everything catches up with her. And she’s angry. And even though I’m pissed off that she’s being idiotic about this whole ‘probably dying but not going to tell anyone’ thing, I love that we get to see more of Barbara dealing with the absurd, because it’s consistent with the way she’s been going since The Aztecs and the way we saw her in The Reign of Terror. As I’ve said, being home (which they don’t mention at all) but the wrong size and having to scurry about like Borrowers is one insult too many to their sense of reality; they’re an inch high in their own world and it’s made home alien, and for Barbara at least this is the last fucking straw.

(It is at this point that I finally gain access to the DVD player for an evening, so expect gratuitous use of infotext from hereon in.)

Ian, who hasn’t employed the Chesterton Neck Pinch for a while, decides that the time is ripe to grab the bestie by the shoulders and give her a good shake. Because this is what being on Earth again does to Ian. Le sigh. However, he must be given token emotional intelligence points for telling Babs to forget about how absurd it all is and concentrate on getting back. Which is pretty much where their characters had been going all last season. Barbara, Barbara, don’t let the crazy grind you down. Although in this case a large part of Barbara’s mopey turn is because she is worried that she’s going to drop dead like that bumblebee from last week.

Anyway, Barbara rallies round, and Ian suggests they use the paperclips from the briefcase to make a ladder. Which, according to the infotext, ‘was Barbara’s idea until a late revision to the script’. THANK YOU, INFOTEXT, FOR THIS EVIDENCE OF BARBARA’S RESOURCEFULNESS BEING GIVEN AWAY TO IAN FOR REASONS. She suggests they also try to find out more about the death glaze (insecticide) in the briefcase, but is shot down by Ian who scoffs at her and says the other thing is much more important. AND INFOTEXT STRIKES AGAIN: ‘Ian wasn’t as dismissive of Barbara’s scripted suggestion that the briefcase would “tell us what they do here” either.’ SCRIPT REVISIONS, Y U MAKE IAN A DICKHEAD? Well, presumably for more dramatic tension, as Babs once again scrubs at her hands with Ian’s handkerchief like Lady Macbeth, but still, UGH.

Back in ‘the pipe of black drapes’ (thank you, infotext), the Doctor is bloody knackered but persevering.

Meanwhile, Ian is offscreen trying to figure out how to open the briefcase and refusing Barbara’s help. Because I swear to god the 1960s make Ian a bellend. He isn’t being particularly Sciency, but is just pushing the clasp; Babs suggest he tries right to left; ‘great minds think alike’, quoth Ian.

BUT OH WHAT’S THIS? IT’S A GIANT FLY! MOVING AROUND LIKE THE ANIMATRONIC MARVEL IT IS JUST BEHIND BARBARA…WHO HASN’T SEEN IT!

Ian opens the briefcase in manly triumph, but is somewhat deflated to discover that Babs is not sharing in his victory. That is because she is now staring at the giant fly with an expression on her face that is more resigned than terrified. As she backs away…SHE SWOONS! We have a swoon! Because this is what Barbara does in this serial. Mostly because she’s, Y’KNOW, DYING, but I don’t like how everyone’s meant to not notice she’s ill because ladies just swoon when they see giant flies. Especially ladies who have taken on Daleks and brains in jars and all manner of unsavoury characters without having had a fit of the vapours; it’s just what they do.

Enter Ian; the fly buzzes off, and he once again showcases his excellent fireman’s lift technique as he hoists Babs over his shoulder to…safety? I dunno, AWAY.

Oh but here come Smithers and Forester. Smithers sasses Forester about being so dumb he’s not noticed the blood all over the patio, then assures him that he’s just in it For The Science. And he has Crazy Eyes just so we know how much he’s in it For The Science.

AAAAAH and here comes possibly my favourite of the Giant Sets: THE SINK. With an actual plughole! Out of which the Doctor and Susan have clambered, and next to which the Doctor is currently lying flat on his back looking absolutely fucking knackered. Never before has a Doctor been so relatable when it comes to physical exertion. Soon, however, he’s giving Susan a lesson about echo chambers (the sink is acting like one) and admitting to not having a Scooby as to the whereabouts or indeed condition of the Space Baes.

And OH infotext, you have more gems for me: apparently, when Babs woke up from her swoon in the script, she struggled more against the Chesterton Shoulder Grab (applied with the superhuman reflexes of a man waiting for the Bae to regain consciousness) because she thought it was the fly savaging her—a thought conveyed through the following words: IS THIS THE GHASTLY EMBRACE? Oh Louis Marks.

Calmed by Ian’s slightly less ghastly embrace, Babs establishes her ok-ness, while Ian tells her she gave him ‘the fright of his life’ when he saw her standing lying there. Which is to be expected, because he loves you yeahhhh yeahhh yeahhhh. (Sorry, I’ll stop making Beatles jokes.) Oh Ian, babes, I’m glad you’re telling her about your Feelings but right now she’s more concerned about the whereabouts of the fly. Which buzzed off when the humans scared it...ONTO THE PILE OF SEEDS, WHERE IT LANDED AND DIED INSTANTLY.

RUH-ROH.

Babs, understandably shitting herself, demands to see the dead fly; Ian once again mistakes Barbara being legit worried about dying (BUT NOT TELLING ANYONE) for Barbara just being morbid, and tries to get into the mood, relishing telling her how it must have died the moment it landed. I…I can’t even lambast Ian for being an insensitive dick here, because reading his OTT speculations as to the fly’s hideous demise as a response to Babs staring at the dead fly like he’s trying to indulge Babs in her increasingly Susan-like antics is just too funny. Though BOY does he get it wrong: Babs yells at him to stop it and turns away having mild hysterics. And Ian is just like ‘IAN DID BAD THING!?’, trotting over to her side like a concerned puppy. Pausing only to touch his hands with her insecticide-infected hands without consequence—in much the same way that the Doctor gets the smelly insecticide on him from that dead bee with no harm done (ARGH!)—Babs looks like she’s about to stop being a tit and tell him she’s dying, when…

DAMMIT SUSAN! An amplified voice calls the humans’ names. Ian asks what Babs was about to tell him, and instead of telling him like a sensible person, Babs’s face lights up and she says it doesn’t matter because if they’ve found Susan it means they can get back to the ship. WHICH HELPS YOU HOW, BABS? I mean I’ve seen the end of this serial so I know getting back to the Tardis will indeed make everything ok, but do you at this point!?!? Ian punches her on the chin in delight, and off they pop in search of their Space Daughter.

Presenting: The Chesterton Chin Punch

Back in the sink, the Doctor is mansplaining acoustics to Susan the super-advanced space child who knows this baby science like the back of her hand. But hey, the Beeb has to inform its audience, so Susan has to be dumb again.

Over the edge of the sink appear our two favourite teachers, and Susan is so excited to see them she has to hug her grandfather a bit. Babs and Ian marvel at their having managed to climb that drainpipe, and look cheery at the prospect of climbing down it, the loons. But first they have to climb down what is to them a thirty-foot plug chain down to the sink; Ian asks Babs whether she thinks she can make it; Babs cheerily reckons she can, and that it’ll be worth it just to Susan and the Doctor again. FAMILY. In your face, Chesterton. Who insists on going first.

Outside, Smithers and Forester are clearing up the blood…which is now all over their hands so OH EM GEE THEY NEED TO USE THE SINK.

And sure enough, the Doctor alerts the gang to the low rumbling of giant human voices. Babs and Ian scarper back up the chain, and the Gallifreyans jump back down the plughole. How tense!

Smithers spots the dead fly and is enormously enthusiastic about the effects of DN6. Apparently he doesn’t now Farrow was trying to stop it because it worked too well.

Back in the briefcase, the humans emerge and observe with some consternation that the tap is on…and OH MY GOODNESS SMITHERS HAS PULLED THE PLUG PUT AND SUSAN AND THE DOCTOR WILL BE DROWNED FOR SURE!

WILL THE GALLIFREYANS SURVIVE THIS ORDEAL BY WATER? WILL BARBARA STOP BEING A PRAT AND ACTUALLY TELL SOMEONE SHE'S DEFINITELY PROBABLY DYING AT SOME POINT? WILL IAN INVENT STILL MORE WEIRDLY COMBATIVE GESTURES OF AFFECTION/COMFORT TO MATCH THE CHESTERTON NECK PINCH, THE CHESTERTON SHOULDER RUB, AND THE CHESTERTON CHIN PUNCH? WILL THE GANG EVER GET BACK TO THEIR NORMAL SIZE, OR WILL THEY BE KNEE HIGH TO THUMBELINA FOR ALL ETERNITY?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? By a cat's whisker and only because I'm feeling generous.

Is the gaze problematic? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? Nope. High necks and dungarees all round.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? YUP (yup).

Does a woman wander off alone for the sole dramatic purpose of getting into trouble so she can be rescued later? Nope. Though Barbara loitering behind for the sole dramatic purpose of getting into trouble so she can be a plot point later is a variant of the same.

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? Both Ian and Barbara are sort of captured when they're carried off in a briefcase.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Ian has to fireman's lift Babs...somewhere?

Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Yup. Babs is now dying.

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, but there is swooning.

Does a woman faint at the sight of peril/horror or generally lose consciousness (discounting normal sleep)? Yes. Though a case could be made for Barbara's fainting fit as an early symptom of having been poisoned by insecticide.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? To Ian, Babs probably goes into hysterics over something relatively minor, but we know she's freaking out because she knows she's probably going to die. 

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, this week it's Babs not letting on. Which brings me to another new category...

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

Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? Yes ish, as Ian refuses to believe that Susan and he have been shrunk.

Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? Not enormously.

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

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? No. Though the Doctor does take it upon himself to climb a wall he's least suited to climb because the alternative is Babs doing it.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? No. And as the infotext tells us, Babs's plan about paperclips is actually given to Ian in the revised script. BOO.

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? No need this week.

Does a woman get to be a badass? No. Well, Susan a bit, with the whole scaling-a-drainpipe thing, though so does the Doctor.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? No.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? It's the present day, so N/A. 

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

Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? N/A.

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

Verdict

More entertaining than last episode, but CHRIST ON A BIKE the humans are dumb this week. Barbara doesn't tell Ian she's probably dying PURELY to rack up the dramatic tension and (later) get Team Tardis invested in the whole insecticide plot, and Ian (who ought to know Babs better by now) fails to notice that a) she's not just being morbid this week and b) she's wandering around with his handkerchief that must surely have that distinctive smell of insecticide all over it (as must she). I do appreciate all the little moments the humans have had this week dealing with reality slapping them in the face (Babs catching herself talking about shinning down a workbench on a reel of cotton and almost losing it is one of my favourite moments this week), and I really appreciate this ongoing thread (no pun intended) of them having to deal with not only danger but also situations that are so ridiculous as to rob them of all human dignity. The sets are particularly gorgeous this week (LOVE THAT SINK SET), and I adore the Doctor's little pep talk to Susan in which he actually shows empathy towards his humans. Susan has a lot of gumption this week and is adorable when she's waving up from the sink, but I really don't appreciate it when the writers make her dumb so the Doctor can educate the kids at home. Next week, let's not have women being uncharacteristically stupid just to further the plot, ok? Ok. 

Series 2 Episode 1: Planet of Giants

Serial: Planet of Giants
Episode: 1 (Planet of Giants)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Louis Marks
Director: Mervyn Pinfield
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 31/10/1964

NOT THE BEES!!! (and other stories)

In which Classic Who goes eco, the humans are dumb, Babs and the Doctor are besties, the sets are gorgeous, the insects are enormous, the continuity is annoying, and Team Tardis finally makes it back to Earth in the 1960s but nobody really wants to talk about it.

Welcome to Series 2! A note on this serial: I’m going to be blogging about this Borrowers-inspired romp as three episodes rather than four, just to save time, and because actually a lot of the stuff that got cut for the original broadcast was in fact pointless filler mostly involving shenanigans at the switchboard. Where genuine character development got cut, I will bring it into the mix; the same goes for scenes that make Barbara ‘I’m definitely dying but I’m not going to tell anybody because of reasons’ Wright look like less of a dick, because I’m biased like that. But this way it takes three weeks instead of four. Onwards!

So we left out motley crew looking for their destiny amongst the stars. We rejoin them in the Tardis control room, in which Barbara, resplendent in the most buttoned-up of buttoned-up blouses, is watching the Doctor faff about with the controls. He has a fancy new cape and looks fabulous.

The Doctor announces that they’re approaching a planet, which brings Ian into the frame, looking very teacherly in a suit and tie. He asks which one; the Doctor says they shall see. At this point, Barbara yells in pain, having burned herself on the console; apparently something is overheating. The Doctor sends Susan off to check the fault locator, and a worried Babs asks—not unreasonably—whether they’re going to blow up or anything. Ian, having stared at her burnt hand for a bit, pats her laughingly on the back, like the patronising sod he was the last time he wore a suit. REMEMBER THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION, IAN—Babs’s concerns are in no way invalid. Anyway, the Doctor’s been trying to side-step the ship from the eighteenth century into the twentieth, which is probably what’s up with the console.

Susan, decked out in dungarees, goes to check the fault locator, which has indeed located some faults. And HOLY KLAXONS BATMAN, the Tardis doors are opening! The Doctor yells for everyone to close the doors, which they finally manage to do; the Doctor mops his brow. And oh phew, they’ve just landed. Ironically, for this serial, the Tardis miniature they use for such shots is entirely appropriate.

Ian is rather sweet with his Space Bro and swoops over to check he’s ok; the Doctor asks Ian not to bother him. He orders Susan back to the fault locator, and when Babs (reasonably I think) says that at least they seem to be all right, he tells her off for being childish, and seems fixated on the fact that the doors opened before they properly materialised. Rude. When Ian and Babs want to know what the big deal is, the Doctor is frustrated that they are ‘talking on the 20th century level’ and is making a big song and dance about being terribly misunderstood.

At this point, Susan pops up to tell her grandfather there isn’t a fault anywhere…which I wouldn’t find comforting at all given that it didn’t say anything was wrong in The Edge of Destruction either. The Doctor doesn’t take Susan’s word for it and goes off to check it himself; Susan looks pissed off, as well she might.

Ian and Barbara are disgruntled, but then they remember that Susan actually knows stuff about how the Tardis works, too; after an unflatteringly long pause, they ask whether she can maybe translate the Doctor’s cryptic bullshit for them. Susan just knows the most dangerous moment is at the point of materialisation, and that the doors have never opened like that before.

The Doctor returns from double-checking Susan’s work and has also come to the conclusion that no harm has been done. He doesn’t apologise to his granddaughter for doubting her abilities but he does apologise to Barbara, and it makes me realise just where Moffatt and Gatiss got Sherlock’s modern-day personality from:

Gifs by cleowho

Clearly I’m not the only one who remembers The Edge of Destruction in this serial—specifically the epic tongue-lashing Barbara gave the Doctor the last time he was being a tool. Also, this is adorable.

Anyway, Susan turns on the scanner to see where they are, and BOOSH! The scanner explodes. How ominous. Hilariously, Ian suggests the Doctor might need a new tube, which I realise will mean nothing to anyone who grew up with an LCD telly display. I, however, have a Dad who is a massive nerd and who enjoys explaining these things to a less-than-captive audience. Just google cathode ray tube.

Anyway, the shock of the explosion has apparently caused the Doctor and Barbara to do a spot of clinging for mutual moral support, and the Doctor speculates that the way the screen blew out was like something was too big for its frame. Which is gorgeously imaginative I have to say, but I would’ve thought that if (spoiler alert) they have been shrunk (oh come on, everyone knows the basic premise of this one) the picture wouldn’t be too big to fit in the frame because that’s not how the telly works.

The upshot of this is that they don’t know what’s waiting for them out there; formerly unwilling adventurer Barbara Wright suggests they go outside and look. How quickly they grow up.

Susan opens the door, and the Doctor advises the team to exercise caution. Ian lags behind so the Doctor can tell him, man-to-man and all that, what made the doors open. The Doctor says the space pressure was too great, technobabble-technobabble, and that the strange thing is that they all came out of it unscathed; he looks positively delighted at the fact that he hasn’t a fucking Scooby what’s going on.

Outside, Babs reckons they’re in a mountain pass or something. The Doctor wonders why the scanner couldn’t just show them that, and Ian suggests the only thing wrong with the ship might be overloading on the scanner circuits. Yeah, Ian, because a science degree from Earth in what I’m going to assume is the late 1950s really qualifies you for diagnosing faults in a dimensionally-transcendental space-time travel machine. Far more so than, y’know, SUSAN, who can only co-pilot the bloody thing.

Babs and Susan are busy examining the rocks, and the Doctor (who is swishing about in his cape like a pro) calls Ian over to confirm something a bit more in his comfort zone, namely whether they are in fact looking at cement. Anyway, the Doctor suggests that he and Barbara go exploring one way, while Ian and Susan go the other way. Whether it’s because the Doctor’s bagsied Babs or because, as has been established in previous episodes, Ian has developed an entirely rational fear of splitting up, his reaction is priceless:

Ian agrees on condition that if they see anything, they’ll ‘sing out’; Team Barbator (for this is what I shall call them) agrees.

The Doctor just can’t get over this rock, but is rudely interrupted by Barbara, who has found a huge snake that is quite obviously a giant earthworm. Because they made Barbara really, really dumb in this serial. And that angers me. The Doctor, however, is utterly delightful, and assures Barbara that the ‘snake’ is dead with gleeful morbidity:

Well, he’s not wrong. They go out of shot, clinging…obv. Because they are ludicrously cute together.

Meanwhile, Ian and Susan are commenting on how hot it is and discovering giant, pill-shaped eggs…AND A DEAD, GIANT ANT. (Though if Ian thinks this is a fantastic size, he should wait until he gets to Vortis.) Ian has a weird little Freudian aside about worker ants who would rather give their own lives than abandon the eggs (broody much?), while Morbid Susan speculates as to the swiftness of the ant’s tragic demise. With almost Snape-like delivery, Ian wonders aloud ‘what sort of a world…could produce an insect…THAT SIZE’.

Elsewhere, Team Barbator has found the other end of the ‘snake’, which the Doctor pronounces a giant earthworm; if it weren’t for its size, he could swear it came from Barbara’s world. Well. He also reckons this maze of passages suggests a brain behind it all. How mysterious.

Meanwhile (again), Susan has been counting the dead ants, because of course; they’re all about them, everywhere. Then they come across something ‘really baffling’—an enormous picture of a seed packet. And the address is…NORWICH! Which means they’re on Earth!

Ok, I’ll actually stop to analyse this bit, partly because I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone this excited about Norwich who isn’t Stephen Fry, and partly because this is how Ian reacts to the possibility that they actually made it home. He has a gorgeous little fluttery moment to himself but immediately starts talking about something being very wrong. Maybe they’re in a crazy exhibition where everything has been increased in size…which is plausible, tbh. Perhaps it’s just lazy writing, but I choose to believe that actually being faced with the possibility that their adventures are over has made Ian realise he doesn’t want them to be over. That’s my headcanon and I’m sticking to it: it doesn’t feel wrong because there’s a scale issue, Ian, it feels wrong because you’re not ready to go home yet.

Meanwhile, the Doctor has found a giant and obviously manufactured wooden object…which he knocks over. He and Barbara cling to each other because of course. Babs spots the charred end of the stick, and the Doctor realises it’s a matchstick. Babs corrects him—it just looks like a matchstick; but no, the Doctor is convinced it actually is a matchstick. And Babs still doesn’t get it. Which is stupidly out of character because of the two humans Barbara has consistently been the one who, when faced with a new reality, however ludicrously improbable, has just gone with it; she was also the one who had the imagination to translate the Tardis’s attempts to communicate in The Edge of Destruction. But no. This serial, Babs is unimaginative and slow. And makes really stupid choices. I can and will defend them in the context of her character development if I must, but mostly I think it’s just shitty, shitty writing.

We cut back to Ian and Susan, so that we can prolong the obvious reveal. In fairness, it is called Planet of Giants, which suggests that they might have landed in Space Brobdingnag, but enough already. They have found a matchbox. So obviously Ian climbs inside, still sticking to his exhibition story. But Susan—who, thank Zarquon, actually gets to know stuff this week—tells him he’s completely wrong (yeah Susan!) and that they have in fact been made smaller. With dramatic music. Which I thought I recognised, because lo and behold this is the first episode with incidental music by Dudley Simpson! It sounds so very Four.

Cut to the Doctor and Babs, who repeats ‘smaller?’ with some incredulity. I’ll give this serial gender points for making the smart/stupid divide a Gallifreyan/human one rather than a male/female one, I suppose. Anyway, they’ve been reduced to roughly the size of an inch.

‘AN INCH!?’ repeats Ian, back in the matchbox. Wow this back-and-forth parallel conversations thing is annoying. I suppose it keeps the pace up, but because they’re doing it as live, it’s not quite as snappy as it ought to be and just feels laboured. There are a lot of awkward pauses.

The Doctor confirms with Babs that this applies to them and indeed the ship; Babs gives him her best ‘FUCKSAKE’ face.

Ok so I said I could defend this from a character development point of view even if I remain of the opinion that Babs tends to go with stuff while Ian staunchly refuses to accept things that go against his notion of what is scientifically possible. These humans have been through a lot. A LOT. They’ve accepted that it is possible to travel in time and space, and that time travel has rules, and that anything goes in space. I think their unwillingness to make the imaginative leap whereby they have been shrunk in size has a lot to do with where they are: home. Home has rules which they think they know, and here they are trying to come to grips with some Gulliver’s Travels-style shit that makes a mockery of the familiar. To paraphrase Babs from later on in this serial, her complaint is that it’s just so fucking ridiculous.

Anyway, there’s a fantastic zoom-out shot from the model Tardis which is of course the model they use for (de)materialisation shots all the time only this time they can actually plonk it in the middle of some Crazy Paving:

The Doctor tells Babs they ought to reassemble the squad and get the hell out of Dodge; Ian, meanwhile, is flatly refusing to believe the truth as related to him by a superior mind (Susan). I must say I’m enjoying how much Susan gets to tell Ian he’s wrong this week. Though the pseudo-science of the doors of Tardis opening and the space pressure shrinking them does sound pretty daft. But I don’t care, because Susan is well and truly back in the game this week. Thank the Whoniverse.

But oh what’s this? A shadow passes overhead, and thunderous noises…er…thunder. Ian tells Susan to run, and fails to exit the matchbox. We return to the usual scale as a passing human picks up said matchbox from the ground…with Ian inside!

I have to say, the continuity is pretty bad here, as the matchbox is clearly much further away from the seed packet in the normal scale than the giant scale, and is really far away from the Tardis. Also, the matchbox and the seed packet are ON THE GRASS at ground level rather than in the cracks in the pavement, which is where Team Tardis is meant to be according to the giant sets, so Ian and Susan would have a clear view up to the house if they’re supposed to be standing by the matchbox. I mention this only because the Borrowers-style sets are so gorgeous and actually convincing that it’s enormously disappointing when the unshrunk world doesn’t match up with it. Also, has the human left his briefcase lying on the ground all this time, or did he put it down to pick up the matchbox? Argh!

Anyway, Susan emerges from behind the seed packet to find the matchbox has gone, and immediately hollers for Barbara (because of course), and Babs appears from behind the seed packet, too. She cannot have been that close-by or OH what’s the use. Sorry, I know there are constraints, and I am the first to appreciate the many difficulties of filming ‘as live’ in the 60s, but it annoys me when so much effort has been put into creating the spatiality of the giant world of the miniaturised travellers and it’s undermined by that one half-assed shot of the normal-sized world.

Susan has hysterics and Babs cuddles her (possibly to muffle the noise), and the Doctor with SUPERB Billy nonchalance supposes someone must’ve picked it up.

Meanwhile, in the matchbox, William Russell is doing ‘being flung from side to side’ acting like he’s in that episode of Brideshead Revisited where they’re on a crazy choppy sea cruise. The man with the matchbox sits on a chair and mops his brow; Ian massages his shoulder.

Ian stuck in a matchbox forever may be my greatest
technological achievement to date.

Back in the pavement cracks (SUPPOSEDLY), Susan is quite literally climbing the walls. As in The Reign of Terror, she is too much of a short-arse to see over the parapet, so Babs volunteers, only to be told by the Doctor she’ll only hurt herself and that he’ll do it. Even though he is shorter, older, and frailer than Barbara. Fucksake. Barbara’s half-lifting him up, and there’s some gorgeous squabbling between the two of them as she asks him whether the man's got the matchbox or not. Irritatingly the Doctor seems to be the only calm one of the three as he insists that they must find Chesterton before getting back to the ship. Which is endearing when you think how far the Space Bros have come in terms of the Doctor no longer being willing to leave a human behind (possibly he know Babs would skin him alive if he did) but Susan in particular is being a panicky mess. DESIST.

The man with the briefcase has a cat, and is about to reach for a match to light his deathstick cigarette when a lighter hoves into view, attached to a man who is clearly a wrongun. (Also, is this the first time a character has lit up on Classic Who? I’m going to say yes.) Anyway, the briefcase man is a sciency government guy (I think) called Mr. Farrow, and he’s been testing a new something called DN6, and has called the wrongun (whose name is Mr. Forester) to talk about it. To cut a long story short, DN6 is an insecticide, but unfortunately it’s not just effective but totally destructive and will wipe out pollinators and generally cause eco mayhem. Which the scientist who worked on it (Smithers!) apparently missed whilst working on it. CLASSIC WHO GOES ECO AND I’M LOVING IT. Ahem. But Mr. Forester is a businessman who has already put all his dosh into marketing DN6, and if it can’t be made, he’ll be ruined. He also doesn’t give a shit about the bees. And doesn’t take the word ‘can’t’ for an answer. Even when Mr. Farrow burns him good:

TAKE THAT, TRU-…I MEAN FORESTER.

Having told Forester that DN6 is an eco disaster waiting to happen, Farrow now wants to take a boating holiday on the rivers of France (I mean really) but is stopped in his tracks by FORESTER PULLING A GUN ON HIM. SHOCKER!

Back in the trenches, a dead bee drops out of the sky and almost brains Susan. The Doctor starts imagining what human versus bee would look like in a world in which they were the same size. Weirdo. He prods the dead bee, then sniffs his own hand and comments on the distinctive aroma of all the dead things he’s encountered so far. These are all things that will bother me immensely in the coming episodes because continuity.

Susan comments on the indiscriminate nature of whatever’s killing the insects, and Babs asks the Doctor whether whatever’s killing everything could also kill them; the Doctor says they’ll have to assume so, and that nobody is to eat or drink anything until they find Ian.

'BOOM!'

A cannon-like noise sounds from on high. And OH CRUMBS, poor old Farrow is the first smoking casualty of Doctor Who, and has been rather bloodlessly shot. At this point, Ian pokes his head out of the matchbox, and clambers out.

Back in the maze, Babs wonders what would’ve happened if they’d met any live giant creepy-crawlies. The Web Planet AMAZING TELLY is what.

Meanwhile, Ian is striding across a screen showing dead Farrow’s enormous face. Rather than seeming concerned that he’s staring into the eyes of an enormous corpse, he gets out his handkerchief to measure the scale of the destruction.

Then there’s a rather puzzling time jump, or else we’re supposed to believe that the squad has been reunited in the time it takes for a cat to scamper across the floor, because now everyone’s catching up. The Doctor can smell gunpowder; superderp Ian reckons that would explain the body. DERP.

The Doctor sits on a piece of chalk the better to observe the giant corpse; Babs observes that there’s death all around them, continuing her morbid streak. Everyone’s less concerned about the human murder than the bees and worms, which is refreshing and makes sense at their size. It also makes sense given how many random deaths they've witnessed, possibly to the point that the humans are now desensitised to human slaughter. Babs asks the Doctor (not Ian) to confirm that killing bees and worms is wrong, which he does, just in case we forgot that this is a show to educate the youth. But enough of that; the Doctor suggests they leave ‘this little mystery’—by which he means murder and the indiscriminate slaughter of local wildlife—and fuck off back to the Tardis, pausing to note only how it’s actually worked out pretty well for them that everything’s dead. So very, very Slytherin.

But OH MY GOODNESS LET’S ALL CLING! Because the cat has returned…and it’s either very close up or ENORMOUS.

WILL THE PACE PICK UP? WILL THE SCALE ISSUES RESOLVE THEMSELVES? WILL THE DOCTOR GROW A CONSCIENCE AND ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE ECO STUFF? WILL BARBARA REVERT TO AN UNEARTHLY CHILD-STYLE BURYING HER FACE IN IAN’S TEACHERY JACKET AT THE FIRST SIGN OF DANGER AS SHE HAS DONE IN THIS CLIFFHANGER, OR WILL SHE SHOWCASE HER SENSIBLE AND PRACTICAL BADASS NATURE IN THE COMING EPISODES? WILL SUSAN GET TO KNOW MORE SCIENCY THINGS? WILL ANYONE ACKNOWLEDGE HOW SHITTY IT IS THAT THEY’RE HOME BUT THE WRONG SIZE?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Yes but fleetingly.

Is the gaze problematic? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? Nope. High necks and dungarees all round.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? Nope.

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. Ian, however, is sort of captured insofar as he is carried off in a matchbox.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Nope.

Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Not until the end, when everyone is menaced by a cat. Ian and the guy who got shot are mostly getting hurt.

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? Yup. And clinging.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? I think Susan's reaction to Ian having 'disappeared' is a little off, given that she's the one who worked out they'd been shrunk so surely she also ought to have twigged that someone picked up the box.

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 Ian seems to think it might be one of those situations judging by how he takes the Doctor aside before exiting the Tardis.

Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? Yes ish, as Ian refuses to believe that Susan and he have been shrunk.

Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? Not enormously.

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

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? No. Though the Doctor does take it upon himself to climb a wall he's least suited to climb because the alternative is Babs doing it.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? No. Well, Susan comes up with the 'let's look over the wall' plan, but there's not really a plan this week except 'find Ian and fuck off', and that's the Doctor's plan.

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. Barbara is worried that the Tardis is going to blow up and is ridiculed, and Susan's theory about having shrunk is flatly disbelieved by Ian.

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? No need this week as the Doctor apologises for his bullshit before Barbara can take him to task for it, but there are some very endearing squabbles between the two.

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? No.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? It's the present day, so N/A. 

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

Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? N/A.

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

Verdict

I love the ideas and the eco stuff in this episode, and I love the sets, but for some reason this serial isn’t quite working for me so far. It’s really slow, and so are the characters, with the exception of the Doctor (and Susan to a lesser degree when she’s showing Ian his wrongness). The bits where it’s great are where the actors are building on the relationships the characters have forged in previous serials (Barbara and the Doctor squabbling is the best), but it’s not really in the script so much as the acting. I like that Susan gets to know stuff this week, but she’s right back to shrieking at stuff and only gets to be smart when the Doctor’s offscreen. I think one of the main things that bugs me about this episode is that this is the humans’ world. Ok, so they need the Doctor and Susan to explain that they’ve been shrunk, but this is the only thing about this time and place they don’t understand; to be asking the Doctor to explain things about their own world to them (like bees being necessary to the ecosystem and all that) just makes the humans seem dumb. And surely Ian as a Science teacher ought to have more to say about all this. And nobody cares about the fact that there’s been a murder! Though as I say, this may be part of a disturbing character development arc whereby the humans are gradually becoming desensitised to violence, or have like Barbara realised that they're pretty-much surrounded by death at all times. All in all, too much has gone into making it look gorgeous (which it absolutely does) and the concept of an insecticide that kills indiscriminately (which I think is a great issue to be tackling in the show), and the character development has suffered. Let’s hope it picks up next week.