The Mind Robber

After the disappointment of The Dominators comes this delightful story. I have lost track of how many times I have watched The Mind Robber and it is never less than a joy. It's such an unusual story, particularly in view of the Troughton eras reliance on monsters besieging bases of various types.

Basically, the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe find themselves outside time and space following an emergency maneuver. The Doctor is nervous. He insists that Jamie and Zoe don't leave the TARDIS but someone - or something - manipulates Zoe into leaving, followed by Jamie and finally the Doctor. They find themselves hypnotized but the Doctor rescues them, they pile back into the TARDIS. They set off. But then the TARDIS explodes, which has to be one of the great Doctor Who cliffhangers.

The rest of the story revolves around a world of fiction into which The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe have been dropped. There are riddles, traps, and monsters. There is Gulliver (Bernard Horsfall) and the Karkus (Christopher Robbie). There is the Princess Rapunzel (Christine Pirie) and her patience with other people's use of her hair. There are White Robots. And Toy Soldiers. And there's The Master (Emrys Jones).

Except not that Master, not THE Master. This Master is an unnamed writer of stories for a Boys Magazine. He churns out 5,000 words a week. He's been kidnapped and used to run the Land of Fiction by a Master Brain. What or who the Master Brain is we never know. We just learn that their plan is to fictionalize all of humanity and leave the Earth empty for conquest. One of the nicest parts of the story is that The Master of the Land of Fiction gets returned home. He isn't destroyed or killed, which might have been the easiest thing because he isn't really a villain. He's being used by the Master Brain. It's the Master Brain that gets fried.

I love this story because it is brimful of ideas and odd images from Zoe being trapped inside a jar, to Jamie's changing face. From Gulliver's inability to say nothing but the words Jonathan Swift supplied him with to the creepiness of Jamie and Zoe being pressed within the pages of a giant book and turned into fiction. From the TARDIS console floating in space whilst Jamie and Zoe cling onto it desperately to the Medusa's snake hair rising slowly into the air.

It rattles along at a heck of a pace too. The episodes are generally pretty darn short, which was a consequence (possibly) of Troughton complaining about the amount of work the main cast were forced to do in this story where there aren't many other actors with speaking parts. That still doesn't eliminate all the padding but it makes for a sharper tale, which director David Maloney makes the most of. I don't often talk about the directors on this blog but there's a coherence to The Mind Robber that is part of its strength. The ideas in it might be weird but the story itself never gets out of control.

Troughton's excellent. Again. His confrontation with the Master at the end of the story is fine work. Helped by Emrys Jones giving an equally fine performance. Frazer Hines to is great once again, although he went down with chickenpox and looked likely to miss a couple of episodes. The production team came up with a clever idea, which the 'oddness' of this story could allow, that allowed Jamie to be played by another actor, Hamish Wilson. Wendy Padbury seems to have found her feet, although there's an almighty fluff by her at the end of her fight with the Karkus that is worthy of mention. Padbury seems to be tiny, especially when facing the might of the Karkus.

My one quibble with this story is that Zoe is very stupid a couple of times, which doesn't seem to fit her character at all. I'm hoping they aren't going to convert Zoe from astrophysicist to peril monkey just because she's the woman. And there's nothing for me to say here about the sparkly catsuit she wears that hasn't already been said elsewhere.

Bernard Horsfall does a lovely job as Gulliver and I've already said how good Emrys Jones is (and there's no harm in me saying it again.)

What more do I need to say? The Mind Robber is a fantastic story. There aren't many stories like it in Classic Doctor Who. It's definitely worth a watch if you've not seen it before.

Enjoy.

The Dominators

The Dominators is the worst Patrick Troughton story I have watched. So far. It was written by Haisman and Lincoln but after a series of rows between the writers and the producer Derrick Sherwin led to it being credited to Norman Ashby.*

The Dominators themselves are basically angry men dressed in woodlouse carapaces and carpet samples. Rago (Ronald Allen) spends most of his time shouting at Toba, his subordinate (Kenneth Ives) whilst Toba spends most of his time shouting at Dulcians, killing them and blowing stuff up. I bet The Dominators have a fantastically ugly social networking culture as it sounds like a society of Twitter eggs.

Also, why are they called The Dominators? Was there a marketing meeting where they decided that they couldn't possibly call themselves after their home planet but needed something with a little more oomph. Unless, in Terry Nation style, they come from a planet called Dominatus.

They back up their shouting with the Quarks. The Quarks are supposed to be terrifying killing machines but are basically boxes upon boxes upon child actors with little squeaky voices. It's especially amusing when you first see one as Morris Barry, the director, has kept them hidden away until CLUNK they're there. They waddle across the island in unconvincing fashion carrying all the threat of a tissue box. The fact that the villains of the story are basically either shouty men having a work based argument or waddling boxes doesn't help.

Then -and this perhaps annoys me more- is the portrayal of the Dulcians. This story is a child of the late-60s so it's a commentary on the 'peace and love' movement and it seems to conclude that a belief in pacifism would lead to a society that does nothing but talks. The Dulcians seem incapable of action (or sensible clothing choices). So, they're the wettest society in Doctor Who so far. The Dulcians make the Thals from The Daleks look like West Ham's Inter City Firm.**

The only Dulcian with any gumption appears to be Cully (Arthur Cox) who is the son of the Director Senex (Walter Fitzgerald). Unfortunately, everyone treats Cully like a clown so when he tries to explain that they've been invaded no one believes him. Even the government.

Their government is a group of old, white men who seem to like a discussion for the sake of discussion and whose top man for dealing with emergencies, Tensa (Brian Cant. BRIAN CANT!!!)*** arrives and basically, says 'We might as well wait.' They get shouted at by Rago, Tensa gets murdered and still, nothing happens.

The thing is you could have made the Dulcians damn brave. You could have had Senex respond to Rago's murder of Tensa by explaining that they don't believe in war or violence but that doesn't mean they aren't prepared to do everything short of violence to stop being made slaves. That the Dominators would have to kill them all one by one. Yes, it might have been futile but it would have made the Dulcians look less like a whinge about hippies and more a reflection of the real courage of those who believe in non-violence: people like Gandhi and Martin Luther-King. But no, they're pacifist so they must be useless.

I'm trying to write more about this story but I'm finding it almost as much of a chore as actually watching it.

It's only saving grace is that Troughton is as majestic as usual. If it wasn't for him, Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury (who I feel is still finding her feet) then this story would be my least favorite Doctor Who story of all time. In fact, it still might be that. This makes The Underwater Menace look like Macbeth.

It's awful.

And I'm done.


*A story told well on The Dominators DVD extra.
**Insert 80s Football 'firm' of your choice.
***Brian Cant is a big deal in Patient Centurion Towers. He's a key part of my childhood.

The Wheel in Space

With The Wheel in Space, the second season of Patrick Troughton's Doctor comes to an end. And, of course, it ends as it began: with a base under siege and Cybermen.

I'll be honest and say the similarity of basic plots in this second season has become a wee bit...tiresome. If it wasn't for Troughton's ability to turn even the most average dross into gold then I think my patience would have run out a long time ago. Well, that and Frazer Hines.

Truth is The Wheel in Space isn't just a bog-standard base under siege story (and I'll talk about the boxes it ticks off shortly) but it's The Moonbase tribute story. We joke about Terry Nation writing the same story over and over again but the various 'from a story by Kit Pedler' credits might as well read 'from the same story by Kit Pedler'.

So, we have an isolated base. It's run by a man - in this case, Jarvis Bennett (Michael Turner) - who's on the edge. Like Robson was in Fury From The Deep or Hobson in  The Moonbase.* Admittedly Bennett has actually leaped over the edge and gone swimming in the sea of lunacy before the stories end. He can't deal with the situation he's found himself in. He's in denial. All the little mysteries the crew are reporting - drops in temperature and pressure, etc - are just freaking him out. It takes a death to shake him out of his lethargy but it is a doomed recovery.

The Cybermen are basically having another go at their Moonbase plan but with added Cybermats. It's so grindingly similar to what's gone before that you start to wonder at what point the Doctor and Jamie are going to stop being under suspicion. Because they're always under suspicion is these stories as a result of their arrival coinciding with the Cybermen's plans kicking up a gear, which is something I'd be suspicious about if I were the Cybermen by now. Somehow, at key moments, the Doctor always turns up in time to put a spanner in the works. And yet they never expect him.

I'm probably being harsh. It's not a terrible story by any means. It's not even that dull, despite being utterly predictable but that's down to the actors. Troughton and Hines are key, obviously and there's strong support from Anne Ridler as Dr. Gemma Corwyn. Again you get the impression that the Second Doctor gets mildly flirty with Dr. Corwyn who is clearly the smartest and most sensible person on the Wheel. It's interesting that for the second story in succession we get a powerful woman in a position of authority. A woman who gets to be courageous too. Corwyn reminded me of Todd (Nerys Hughes) in Kinda but perhaps I'm finding patterns where there aren't any again.

The Wheel in Space also sees the first appearance of Zoe Heriot, played with elfin enthusiasm**by Wendy Padbury. Zoe is an astrophysicist. She's also the butt of some nasty comments about her lack of heart by various crew members as she dishes out unpalatable facts with minimal emotion. This, we discover, is the result of her education. And Zoe herself is afraid that she'll turn into some emotionless wreck, which makes for an interesting echo of the Cybermen themselves (and perhaps is also an echo of The Brotherhood of Logicians from Tomb of the Cybermen.)*** At the end of the story, Zoe sneaks - badly - aboard the TARDIS.

The rest of the performances are a mixed bag but that's because some of the characters are so thinly drawn as to be almost invisible and I can't help but find Leo Ryan (Eric Flynn) and Tanya Lernov's (Clare Jenkins) thuddingly dull flirtation a little tedious. Sorry. It's just a bit unnecessary. But there's a young Donald Sumpter as Enrico Casali (who is, I'm afraid to say, slightly 'darkened' by make-up) and I think I'm quite glad that no footage exists of Peter Laird as Chang. But it is good to see Kevork Malikyan, even if he gets one of the less impressive deaths in Doctor Who history.

The Cybermen look good again but once more their pretty rubbish. There are moments of tension and perhaps if this story existed in the archive it would be easier to love. The final episode certainly has a nice scene where The Doctor is confronted by the Cybermen and he tries to find out what they're up to whilst they keep coming back to the fact that he 'knows their ways' and will have to kill him. It's a wonderful bit of Troughton work.

So, The Wheel in Space ends season two of the Troughton years not with a bang but with a whimper. I think it is - the occasional moment aside - the only genuine dud of the Troughton years so far. Even The Underwater Menace is more fun. Alas, David Whitaker was unable to do for the Cybermen what he had done for the Daleks in the Troughton years. They're still not quite the monster they should be.




*Looking at the naming conventions we should count ourselves lucky he's not called Dobson.
**If such a thing exists.
***There I am seeing patterns in things again where they probably don't exist.

Fury From The Deep

After listening to this again I'd put Fury From The Deep high on my list of Doctor Who Missing Stories I'd like to see recovered. On audio - and for this story, I couldn't find a reconstruction - this is a massively atmospheric story. I suppose that apt for a story that ends up revolving around sound. 

The Doctor,  Jamie, and Victoria have arrived on an English beach via one of the TARDIS's more dramatic landings. They wander around for a bit, get shot and interrogated by Robson (Victor Maddern) and talked to more politely by Harris (Roy Spencer) and it turns out that something is wrong in the world of North Sea Gas.

Indeed this story is a combination of Base Under Seige and a particularly weird episode of The Office. Robson struts around shouting at Harris, Van Lutyens (John Abineri) and the Chief Engineer (Hubert Rees) about how he learned everything he needed to know about gas rigs by working on them, not with all this nonsensical education and theory. He's basically the personification of the 'University of Life' type. He'd almost certainly fit into the modern world with its disapproval of facts; His disapproval of Van Lutyens is such that he'd almost certainly be a UKIP man. But I digress. 

It turns out that - despite Robson's denials - that there is something in the pipes. Waiting. Van Lutyens gets a fantastic line about this delivered to perfection by the mighty John Abineri. 

Victor Pemberton wrote a pretty impressive base(s) under siege story here but once again the material is raised to another level by the performances. I waxed lyrical about Troughton in the last blog so I won't dwell on his performance too much here except to say it is brilliant. Again. Frazer Hines continues to do a superb job as Jamie. 

It's funny that the cliche of the Doctor Who companion is the young woman and that when people - non-fans mainly - make lists great companions they are almost entirely woman but actually one of the great Doctor Who companions of all time is Jamie McCrimmon. It also illustrates to me that New Doctor Who has given up on male companions because they've decided the default TARDIS team is The Doctor plus young woman. I'm sure it is easier to write. But have we missed out on other Jamie McCrimmon's accordingly? I don't want this to sound like a whinging white man's lament for a lost world. I'm not that sort of person. I just don't think Doctor Who should ever slip into 'only x works' thinking. Its capacity to change and to play around with the format is what has kept Doctor Who alive so long. 

But I digress. Again.

The guest stars in Fury From The Deep are all up to snuff too. I've mentioned John Abineri already but Victor Maddern does an excellent job as Robson falls apart. He's clearly something of a pain in the arse as a boss normally but here he's pushed to breaking point, paranoid and then taken over by a seaweed creature. So, it is no surprise he gets a little shouty. Roy Spencer as Harris and Jane Murphy as Margaret - his wife - do a nice job being a normal couple in an abnormal situation. It's the nearest Doctor Who has come to a soap opera at this point. 

Perhaps the best performance though is Margaret John as Megan Jones. Unusually for the 60s, Jones is a female character with real authority and her scene with Victor Maddern when she tries to talk Robson out of the control of the weed creature is great. She tries tenderness and then switches to a harsher 'pull yourself together' approach. It's nicely played by both of them but John gives Jones* real authority. 

It would be remiss not to mention Mr. Quill (Bill Burridge) and Mr. Oak (John Gill) a creepy pair of heavy breathers who spend most of the story being unpleasant and devious. They're memorable enough in the little clip that survives and on audio that it makes you even more annoyed that this story doesn't exist on video. There is the worrying possibility that it might turn out to be a disappointment if the foaminess overwhelms the creepiness but I'd be happy to have a chance to make that decision.

Oh. Foam seems to be a big thing in the Troughton era. We saw it in The Web of Fear. Is there a foam agenda? 

So, what do I conclude from all this nonsense? Well, if you haven't 'watched' Fury From The Deep then you should. It's a fine, creepy story with excellent performances all around.  

You know what. I was about to finish this blog without mentioning that it is Victoria Waterfield's last story and she goes out on a screaming high. Victoria's just had enough of turning up at places where everything is horrible and people die. It's understandable. Since she first met the Doctor back in The Evil of the Daleks (during which her father was killed) it's been a festival of death and she can't take it anymore. It's quite a realistic reason to leave. 

There's a lovely scene between her and Jamie in the final episode as Jamie tries to persuade her to stay. And it just confirms my headcanon that there was more to their relationship than just 'friends'. Jamie is incredibly upset at the end and throws something of a mild strop. It's the Doctor's slightly hurt response that caps the story in a lovely way. 

Give it a listen. Watch the remaining clips. Find a reconstruction.


"It's down there. In the darkness. In the pipeline. Waiting..."




*That sentence got ugly. Sorry.

The Web of Fear

Like yesterday's Enemy of the World blog who knew I'd get a chance to watch The Web of Fear on DVD. It seemed lost forever but then it wasn't. O until we realized that Part Three was still missing. Missing presumed stolen.

I'd like to take a moment here to speak to the outrageous horror who 'stole' Part Three and who I assume paid a lot of cash for 'a very expensive gloat'. I hope it brings you no joy at all. I hope that it falls on your head from a great height. I hope - whoever you are - that it rots your mind. You're obviously rich so spend the money on making up for your nasty behavior. You can't take it with you. Personally, I think you're a very sad man. And you will be a man. There's no doubt about that.

Anyway, enough of my dislike of the unknown thief. I come to praise The Web of Fear not to bury it. When this and Enemy of the World were discovered the consensus seemed to be that Enemy of the World was a revelation and The Web of Fear was a tiny bit disappointing. But I can't quite accept that consensus. I think Enemy of the World is magnificent but The Web of Fear is, for me, the peak Base Under Siege story.

It's partly I think because it is in my home city, in locations I know and worked near. So, for example, I know how out of breath the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria would have been climbing the stairs at Covent Garden. I've done it myself. It's a lot of stairs. The idea of being trapped in the London Underground by a combination of Yeti and killer fungus plays to some of my current and childhood fears. Even now I can't go too close to the edge of an Underground platform as I feel like I'm being dragged towards the tracks and unpleasant death by either crushing or electrocution. So, there's that.

Then there's Troughton. He's majestic in this. The way he lowers his voice when he's about to say something worrying and/or terrible. His light flirtation with Anne Travers (Tina Packer). His concern for Jamie and Victoria. His frustration when HIS plan doesn't come off as the story comes to its end. His delight when the control sphere comes back to life. Everything. This is Troughton at his best. And that best is better than almost any other actor to play the Doctor. He's got charisma to burn but he's also a bloody good television actor. He gets the medium. You can see why other actors who have played the Doctor tend to quote Troughton as an influence. But I could write a paragraph similar to that for every single Patrick Troughton story. He is, almost without exception, the best thing in any Patrick Troughton Doctor Who story.

I should also say how much I enjoyed Tina Packer's performance as Anne Travers. She's a suit-wearing female scientist who takes no nonsense from Captain Knight - or anyone else. She works closely with the Doctor (and her father) on nitty-gritty scientific work. She feels like The Doctor's equal without anyone making a huge fuss about it.

Anne Travers is Professor Travers's daughter and that's another thing I like about this story is that it reminds us that the TARDIS travels in time by letting us meet a character we last saw only twelve weeks ago. So Professor Travers 'tidied up' the mess left behind in Tibet after The Abominable Snowmen bringing back a 'dead' Yeti robot and some damaged bits 'n' bobs. Unfortunately, being a scientist in Doctor Who he can't help but fiddle with something that should not be fiddled with and thus starts chaos and murder.

It brings me to one of my complaints about this story: the Jewish cliche that is Julius Silverstein (Frederick Schrecker). I'm not Jewish so perhaps I'm over-reacting but he's not the most subtle of portraits but then Jack Watling doesn't exactly underplay Professor Travers.

Another obvious thing I haven't mentioned yet is that The Web of Fear is the first time we meet Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney). Here he is just Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart and his early appearance happens at a point where we are clearly meant to be suspicious of this new arrival, which is great. But Lethbridge-Stewart's willingness to accept the Doctor for what he purports to be is rather charming, especially in the face of Captain Knight's mocking cynicism.

This is a classic Doctor Who story in terms of the inability of soldiers to deal with the enemy their facing. Indeed it's possible to argue that Part Four is one of the bleakest in Doctor Who history. People die. Lots of people. Not just faceless men in uniform but men we've got to know. Lethbridge-Stewart's reaction when he returns to HQ is well-played by Courtney and for once the sacrifice of soldiers in a Doctor Who story actually feels like it matters to everyone.

Captain Knight is played by Ralph Watson, who does a good job of his first role in Doctor Who. He'll later crop up in The Monster of Peladon and The Horror of Fang Rock

I've not said much about Frazer Hines or Deborah Watling in this story but that's because they do their usual sterling work, although Victoria is in danger of becoming the used only as a pretty girl hostage. Jamie is ridiculously brave throughout, even in the face of impending death.

So, this one really did it for me. There's even time to watch the Doctor and Anne do actual scientific work.

Oh and - without spoiling it - the surprise reveal, in the end, is genuinely quite surprising and sad. If you've not read the novelization or listened to the audio. Oh, and boo BBC Worldwide - or whoever - for the utter lack of effort with the DVD release from an extras point of view but another large cheer for Philip Morris's work in recovering the episode.

And once more my undying dislike of the person who stole Part Three.

The Enemy of the World

Who would have thought that I'd get a chance to watch and blog Enemy of the World? Lost and unseen for nearly 45 years and then discovered in Jos, Nigeria by Philip Morris of Television International Enterprises Archive. We owe Philip Morris a great debt of gratitude and I hope that his work yields up more lost BBC programming.

The problem with a returned story, of course, is that it carries a weight of expectation. The Enemy of the World wasn't a lost story that topped most people's lists of stories they'd like to see returned. It's an oddity in Troughton's second season: the one without monsters. So sometimes it got forgotten about. There's also the joy in getting a story back that's lost which means you almost feel obliged to love it.

Well, there are lots of things to love about The Enemy of the World. The most important of which is Patrick Troughton himself. No audio or reconstruction can really give you a clue as to how magnificent an actor he is and the depths of his Doctor.

Episode One of this story is a thing of joy, especially as The Doctor goes frolicking (the only suitable word surely) about on the beach clad in longjohns. But The Enemy of the World gives us a bonus: a double-whammy of Troughton as he gets to play Salamander, the Mexican wannabe ruler of the world (according to his erstwhile comrade Giles Kent (Bill Kerr)). This gives Troughton a chance to show us his acting chops and he seizes it with both hands.

Salamander is clever and nasty, which always makes for more fun. And there're some great moments but my favorite is the way - in a later episode - he sits back and lights up a massive cigar after a particularly hard days villainy.

So for nothing else but Troughton you've got to be pleased to see this story again.

Then there's Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Victoria (Deborah Watling) as his companions. As a friend of mine pointed out on Twitter whatever the relationship between them is supposed to be on - and there's much talk of brother/sister previously - it would be very easy to see them as something more than that. I've no doubt that if the internet had existed in 1967/68 people would ship Jamie and Victoria. I love the way their costumes are echoes of each other and there's some nice mirroring of body language too.

Then there are some of the other performances: Milton Johns as Benik, the sadistic and creepy Salamander sidekick, Carmen Munroe as Fariah (whose death scene is probably the darkest moment in the entire story and confirms Benik's unpleasantness), Mary Peach as Astrid, the action woman who seems to have more honour than most of the rest of the supporting characters and Bill Kerr as the snarling, devious Giles Kent.

My favorite performance though is probably Reg Lye as Griff the Chef. The character might almost be a totally unnecessary one. He does nothing to further the plot. He doesn't even give much in the way of exposition. He's just a grumpy Aussie chef trying to get on with his job. He might actually be the most ordinary of ordinary blokes in classic Doctor Who. And I love the performance.

Actually one of the little things to enjoy in this story is a few glimpses of normal humanity amongst guards: eye-rolling at annoying superiors, horror at unpleasant behavior, etc. You don't see it much in Doctor Who and it makes a refreshing change.

There're a couple of performances that draw the attention for other reasons: David Nettheim does a reasonable job as Fedorin but is lumbered with possibly one of the weediest characters you can imagine and is forced to spend most of his time looking flustered and concerned. And then there's Adam Verney's Colin. Ah. Colin. It's one of those over-keen performances that 50s and 60s television are scattered with as actors struggle to adjust to the smallness of the medium. It's not helped by the fact that Colin is supposed to be keen but it's slightly jarring.

The story itself, which is half-James Bondian supervillain, secret bases, and half-Prisoner of Zenda doppleganging, isn't bad but it is probably too long at 6 episodes, but having said that it never really feels boring just padded a tad. It also makes a pleasant change that there are no Monsters. It's just human beings being human beings. Or to use a Twelfth Doctor quote it is partly a story of people who, "...Just want cruelty to beget cruelty. You’re not superior to people who were cruel to you, you’re just a whole bunch of new cruel people. A whole bunch of new cruel people being cruel to some other people, who’ll end up being cruel to you."  

Barry Letts, who directed this, certainly gets the pacing right in the first episode but it wobbles a bit in the 3rd and 4th episodes before getting back on track again in the 5th and then rushing towards its conclusion in the 6th. Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.

However, the final episode does see Salamander/the Doctor go head-to-head inside the TARDIS, which works exceptionally well considering the time this story was made and is a final piece of proof of Troughton's magnificence.

So to cut a long story short: I enjoyed it but more for the performances than the plot. It was good to get it back. It's good to see Troughton in such excellent form. You can see why Troughton is the Doctor's Doctor. He's capable of bringing subtlety out of even the cheesiest lines.

The Ice Warriors

Three stories into Troughton's second season and we're again in a base under siege. It's under siege before the story begins but by nature - in the form of a whacking great glacier - not the monstrous. Indeed, as this story progresses you might even argue that it is a story about two bases under siege.

The humans in their lovely futuristic looking clothes are besieged by the Ice Warriors but only as long as they don't know what kind of engines power the Ice Warriors craft. But the Ice Warriors to are under siege. The humans are using an Ionizer to try and keep the glaciers back. That Ionizer is capable of destroying the Ice Warriors ship if it is used. So for a large chunk of the story, it's a Mexican stand-off.

And I'm afraid we come to a problem: the Ice Warriors themselves. I've read that Mark Gatiss had trouble persuading Steven Moffat to let him bring the Ice Warriors back because to Moffat they were the perfect illustration of the slow, clumsy and incomprehensible Classic Doctor Who monster and on the basis of this story I'd have to agree with him. They look great when standing still but as soon as they start moving they waddle slowly about like a duck inside a turtle shell. Their whispering voices, which actually I like, are - on occasion - difficult to understand. But they were obviously memorable enough on their first appearance to get a follow-up.

My other complaint about them is their so stupid. They move straight to violence without thinking about it. Varga threatens to kill the Doctor pretty much instantly even though he's been banging on about 'trapping' someone for ages, which his excuse for keeping Victoria alive. They're just blundering oafs, which is a shame really but explains the...well...we'll keep that for The Seeds of Death.

The best thing about this story though is the performances. It (almost) goes without saying that Troughton is fabulous. He is. Deborah Watling gets to be scared a lot but she's got that ability to be both scared and brave at the same time. An ability that Barry Letts attributed to Liz Sladen. She's terrified almost all the time but she still tries to do the right thing, which makes her heroic. I also love her costume in this story. Frazer Hines never fails to make Jamie feel real and his chemistry with Troughton and Watling is excellent. This is a TARDIS crew that suffered badly from the archive losses but which now might be in need of some reassessment following the return to the archive of The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear.

The main cast is given superb support here though from Peter Barkworth as Clent. He's the very definition of a man out of his depth, but then who wouldn't be. He's become reliant on the computer to confirm his decisions and the computer can't handle the mess it is in and so he hovers around the edges of a nervous breakdown without quite having one. I ended up feeling a little sorry for Clent who is challenged by The Doctor, by Penley (Peter Sallis) and then gets told by Varga (Bernard Bresslaw), the Ice Warrior Commander, that his life is pretty much worthless. I'm not sure anyone would come out of such testing well.

Peter Sallis also gives an excellent performance as Penley. I think this is the only thing apart from 'Last of the Summer Wine' that I've ever seen Peter Sallis is in and it makes me want to find dig out other things he's done. Perhaps Toby Hadoke can help me? [Pops off to Twitter for a moment.] Penley has abandoned Clent's team and fled to the wilds shacking up with Storr (Angus Lennie), who is an anti-science man. Storr is destined to meet a sticky end. Penley, forced to go back to Clent due to Jamie's injuries, will end up winning the computer v humans argument.

There's a nice little scene at the end between Penley and Clent where their obvious friendship comes through and Penley gives Clent the nudge he needs to reset himself back to 'normal'. It nicely played.

Clent's closest colleague, Miss Garrett (Wendy Gifford) tries throughout to stay committed to the computer and Clent. She defends Clent to Penley and the Doctor. She's dressed, like everyone in this story, in a late-60s version of future fashion. If anything dates this story it is the combination of the fashion and the clunky size of the computers. But I'm afraid I developed a little crush on Miss Garrett/Wendy Gifford, which I'm sure you don't need to know.

So to conclude a blog that is in danger of escaping from me The Ice Warriors is a story to watch for the performances. Its plot isn't spectacularly original, it's final episode is a messy little thing but Peter Sallis, Angus Lennie, Peter Barkworth, Wendy Gifford, Frazer Hines, Deborah Watling and most particularly Patrick Troughton make it well worth watching.