This is one of the last Dr Who stories to feature William
Hartnell in the lead role and it is the last to feature Dodo as the companion
and introduces Ben and Polly who became the Doctors companions and remained so
until early into Patrick Traugton’s run.
Fortunately this is one of the Hartnell stories where there
are no missing episodes. Many were lost due to the BBC purging the stores of
old tapes or tapes simply being reused so many episodes or whole stories were
lost. Parts for this story were found in various countries and painstakingly
put back together.
Whilst this is in black and white the storyline is a good
one although with hind sight it is a little far-fetched.
This story was shown in four episodes in June – July 1966
Basic plot:
The Doctor and Dodo arrive in London in 1966 shortly after the
General Post Office Tower (now the BT tower) was completed. Inside the tower is
what is claimed to be the world’s most powerful computer, WOTAN. A computer
which will soon be linked to many other computers in governments around the
world to remove any human error. The belief is that a computer has no emotion
and so is incapable of making a mistake due to them.
The Doctor is uneasy about this even more so when the
computer knows what TARDIS stands for, something it simply could not have
known. Then the computer starts to think for its self and makes a decision which is something that the Doctor must prevent it from carrying out but is he already
too late….?
What I thought of it:
As with a lot of the older Dr Who’s the casting and acting
was far better than many of the newer episodes and there was very little of
some of the smaller characters trying to over egg their parts to get noticed. I
think a lot of this was due to there being very few big names in the more minor
roles. Hartnell continues to play the Doctor as a rather fussy, slightly grumpy
elderly gentleman but with an intellect far superior to any of those from the
rebooted series. Whilst some of the extras needed a bit of training on timing
like falling in a less controlled manner after being ‘shot’ overall there isn’t
a casting mistake in the story.
I feel that when this was first shown and computers were
becoming big business this story would have been far scarier as the general
public, most of whom would not have seen one let alone used one, would have no
way of knowing exactly how powerful they could be or that they are only dumb
machines which only do what they are told to do by a programme so one becoming
a bit of a megalomaniac may not have been thought of as impossible.
WOTAN and the so called war machines do look as if they were
a ‘make it’ section from an episode of Blue Peter and are rather clunky and
cumbersome. However, computers form the 60s were about 20 times bigger (if not
more so) and could probably do about as much as a modern, fairly basic
calculator. The War machine looks as if it would take ages to turn round and
any attack from behind could easily disable it as all the weapons are at the
front.
The special effects well firstly you have to remember that
in the 60s Dr who had a series budget that probably wouldn’t even cover the
hair and makeup costs of even a single episode of today’s series. In this story
the effects are reduced right down to a puff of smoke from the weapons on the
war machines, a rather odd concentric circle overlay used in the first episode
and the appearance/disappearance of the TARDIS. I feel that is some parts the
smoke/dry ice effects were somewhat over done but when it is all the budget
will allow why not go a little nuts with it? The rather breathless voice used
as the voice of WOTAN does add an air of malevolence to the computer. It is
perhaps rather odd in the fact that it refers to the Doctor as ‘Dr Who’ as his
name rather than as a question.
Whilst the black and white filming may put younger viewers
off this I feel that in some parts this helps to add to the atmosphere created
which colour film may have taken away from.
DVD Extras include:
Blue Peter
There are a number of extracts from episodes of Blue peter
shown around the time this story was filmed. The first looks at the GPO tower
shortly after it was finished and shows the work still going on inside and what
it was/is for and the ‘make it’ section showing how to make a model of the GPO
tower. A third centres on the filing of this story and shows a few clips from
the story as well as a first look at the war machine model. A third shows a few
pictures of models of Dalecks made by viewers.
WOTAN assembly
This goes through how this story was put back together from
copies of the story from Nigeria and Australia after the BBC had junked their
copy of the films. The found copies had some damage to them due to machine
damage or from cuts made when the tapes were in New Zealand to censor bits deemed
too unsuitable for children. Restoring these cuts took time but some were found
from an episode of Blue Peter (which had a section New Zealand censored as
unsuitable for children) and from people who took some of the cut bits as keep
sakes. The extra shows how bits from the Australian and Nigerian prints as well
as the bits from the copy of Blue Peter which the BBC had kept as well as
surviving bits which were cut from the tapes were used to produce the whole
episode and how they got around the missing video by using bit of film from
elsewhere and using a bit of computer jiggery pokey to fill any gaps and to
clean it up.
One foot in the past:
Narrated by the late Tony Benn it is a look at the history
of the GPO Tower after it was built in 1965 and how the public used to be able
to go up it. It looks at how it was built and the fact that it had to be ridged
in order to transmit the information accurately. Benn does discuss the
revolving restaurant which again used to be open to the public and how unhappy
he was when it was closed to the public in 1981. Although on some of the things
he says I feel , as he was an MP at the time, you need to take it with a pinch
of salt.
Now and Then:
A look at the areas in London used for the filming of the story
and how it has changed in the meantime. Other locations the crew considered for
the filming are also shown. Clips from the story are show then cut always to
what that same area looks like now. Some of the changes are quite dramatic
whilst others just look like the stonework has been sand blasted to clean it
up.
Photo gallery
Self explanatory.
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