Back in London. Modern day, such as it is, and so we begin a cliché that will last another 47 years… So the Doctor parks up the TARDIS and some poor copper tries to use it… The Doctor places and Out of Order sign on it. Wasting police time. Git.
The Doctor can now apparently sense aliens. He has Spidey sense.
We get to see BT Telephone tower. Or Post Office Tower. Or whoever the hell owned it back then – and the Doctor is amazed to see it. How does that work? He’s been to London bloody loads.
Polly! Yay! No idea if she’ll be any good but it’s Anneke Wills who is lovely. And, yes, Polly is fun. And within about 10 minutes I really like her. And she conveniently bumps into a random sailor named Ben Jackson in a nightclub with a funny name. “Inferno”. What’s that all about? Never catch on.
Ben is a proper cockney geezer and instantly likeable. He seems to form a very quick sense of loyalty/obedience to the Doctor.
A machine that can think. And conveniently has bits on the front that look a bit like a face. We turn it on and it immediately decides to take over the world. At least Deep Thought had the courtesy to answer a few proper questions before it started to take the piss. And then it issues forth a line that upset Who fans for decades:
“Doctor Who is required”
The waves of Geek-shock can still be felt today.
Dodo sort of disappears – We see her looking a bit shaky and then she vanishes to the country. I knew she was leaving in this story before I first saw it but it’s still a very disappointing exit (for a very disappointing companion).
There’s a large and pointless fight in the middle of episode 3. I don’t mind the concept that guns firing smoke can kill (we all remember the Dalek movies, right?) and I like the idea they somehow jam guns but the scene is really rather dragged out a lot. And let’s be honest, the War Machines themselves are a touch crap. This is clearly another attempt to reinvent the Daleks and the guns look okay but other than that they’re basically just massive box with smash-y bits on. They sound a lot like a ZX Spectrum loading and I hated that sound the first time around.
Episode 3 does have a nice cliffhanger as everyone runs away from an approaching War Machine but the Doctor just walks towards it and starts to stare it out…
Ben worries about Polly:
The Doctor: “If we’re going to worry about one person we shall never solve anything, shall we?”
Ben: “He looked such a kind old bloke too, didn’t he?”
Now you know how we’ve been feeling for 3 years, Benjy.
So, The Doctor traps a War Machine in a trap so simplistic that Wayne Rooney would be suspicious. He turns it against its masters and it charges into (and somehow up) the Post Office Tower. And then it’s all over. And off the Doctor scarpers…
As well as being a sudden ending we get a sudden shift in the companion balance. A throwaway line confirms we’ve seen the last of Dodo before Ben and Polly (who only met the other day in that nightclub scene, remember) decide to jointly enter a small police box to see an old man.
Oh, and they never did explain the Doctor’s Spidey sense.
It’s alright, I guess. Nice ideas and the introduction of Ben and Polly was nice and both are instantly likeable. But a rather disappointing ending.
Now, I just have to decide what would I rather have, life sized Dalek or life sized War Machine. Well, as long as it doesn’t make that bloody noise…