The Steel Sky [Episode 1]
I haven't told Hannah how many episodes are in this one; audiences in the sixties wouldn't have known how long each story would last, and the twist at the end of episode 2 only works if you're not expecting it to be a four-parter.
We're off to a shaky start when Dodo emerges from her first trip in the TARDIS, convinced that the jungle environment is part of Whipsnade Zoo and adamant that they couldn't be anywhere other than Earth. Hannah's initial reaction is the start of a trend that will continue throughout the episode.
Hannah: I hate her.
Even Steven seems exasperated with her. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Doctor's new companion also seems somewhat zoologically-challenged.
Hannah: Did she just call that a locust? That's clearly a mantis! Locusts look like grasshoppers.
Elsewhere, a criminal trial is taking place; Hannah watches the scene in silence, but the incredulity on her face speaks volumes.
Me: What?
Hannah: There's just so many things!
Me: Go on then.
Hannah: First of all, he's not wearing any trousers. I can see his pants. He's wearing budgie smugglers. Dark ones.
Me: Okay. Next?
Hannah: His sentence for being careless is to be miniaturised by "the minifier" - the minifier - for seven hundred years until he can no longer be a threat to anyone. Does minifying people make them long-lived?
Me: They're on a seven-hundred-year journey to escape the dying Earth and settle on a distant planet. These are the guardians who safeguard the Ark; the rest of the human race is miniaturised and kept in cold storage.
Hannah: So what are these guardians supposed to be doing? Everyone's just standing around wearing tassels.
She's been suspiciously quiet about their alien subordinates so far.
Me: What do you think of the Monoids?
Hannah: Interesting, because they've just got one big eye in the middle of their face where their mouth should be. But apparently they don't have a mouth, so they have to communicate with sign language instead.
Me: The actors are actually holding the eyeball in their mouths. To be honest I find it less distracting than their Beatles hairstyles.
Back at the zoo, it's time to discuss the elephant in the room. Monica the elephant is deliberately filmed in a way to resemble stock footage, and the director manages to convincingly fool the viewer right up until the moment when the Doctor and Dodo go up and start patting her. I turn to Hannah, expecting her to be suitably impressed.
Me: Look, it's actually there! They had an elephant in the studio!
Hannah: And? They've had horses before.
Me: It's not quite the same.
The travellers are surprised to find that the jungle has no sky, just a steel roof overhead.
Hannah: Of course, they didn't have things like the Eden Project back then. But they must have had zoos. She's already mentioned Whipsnade, but did they not have biomes?
Me: I'm not sure they had any biomes with a massive jungle inside a metal dome.
Hannah: What about botanical gardens inside a greenhouse?
Me: Not with Indian elephants wandering around inside them, no.
It turns out Dodo has been helping herself to clothes from the TARDIS wardrobe, another transgression that doesn't sit well with Hannah. When Dodo asks the Doctor if he's going to send her home, and he replies that he couldn't even if he wanted to, it doesn't occur to her to question this; in fact, she seems quite chipper about it.
Hannah: I really don't like people like that.
Me: Like what?
Hannah: People who ask a question and then don't listen to the answer.
Me: About quarter past eight.
This earns me a Look. It's okay, I'm used to it.
Hannah: The Monoids' sign language is too simplistic to be remotely useful. Mostly because they don't really have fingers.
Me: I don't suppose they've got very good depth perception, either.
Hannah: And yet they're still allowed to drive trucks.
The Monoids discover the TARDIS and raise the alarm, but it's not immediately clear where the noise is coming from, causing Hannah to briefly wonder if the Doctor has recently installed a burglar alarm. It's actually not a bad idea, especially if the TARDIS gets attacked by any aliens who are sensitive to loud noises; at the very least, it would have saved a lot of bother at the beginning of The Sensorites.
Hannah: I've always liked this concept. Spaceship habitat, doomed races, preserved life... it's been done a lot, but Doctor Who must have been one of the first.
Me: Apart from the Bible.
Hannah: I know, but I'm looking on a sci-fi level.
The Doctor estimates that the TARDIS must have jumped about 10 million years into the future.
Hannah: And everyone is still human-shaped and wearing awful clothes.
Even more bizarrely, they've commissioned a giant statue that takes seven hundred years to sculpt, due to be completed when they reach their destination. Talk about forward planning.
But it's all academic anyway because the crew have suddenly caught Dodo's common cold, a disease which they cured centuries ago and is now fatal because they have no natural resistance.
Hannah: Oh, they're all going to die of flu because of her. I knew I hated her.
Me: She's not having a good first trip.
Hannah: Good, I hope she dies.
Me: Maybe a little harsh?
Hannah: She's been really annoying, right from the start. I wonder if she'll ever calm down, and what horrible thing will have to occur to make that happen.
The Doctor's party are arrested by the deputy commander, whom Hannah describes as "a little bit mental."
Hannah: Horribly hammy. I mean it's a good story, but the acting is atrocious. The direction is bad; it's not subtle or creative. The story is interesting, but a lot of the time I'm just thinking "oh god, why couldn't you have made everything else decent?"
The Plague [Episode 2]
Hannah: It's weird when they re-film the cliffhanger reprise.
Me: Is it re-filmed?
Hannah: Yes. It's completely different. He gestured the first time, and also everyone else was a good couple of steps behind him.
We see a funeral procession for a dead Monoid, but it seems to be lacking a certain something.
Hannah: It completely ruins the moment, the fact that it's a man dressed up in a rubber alien suit driving the body away on a tiny little tuk tuk. A little airport scooter. But I do like the idea that they've brought a disease somewhere, it's always an interesting concept. I've never thought of that before; they're travelling to all these different planets and so far they've never accidentally given a disease to someone.
Me: To be fair, it doesn't look like the Doctor has ever considered it before either.
Hannah: It's like when white settlers went over to North America and wiped out whole settlements just by being there, because the native Americans didn't have any natural immunity to smallpox. And then, when the settlers realised what had happened, they deliberately gave them infected blankets so that the natives would all die out and they could take their land.
Astonishingly, we're told that the vaccine is a natural compound derived entirely from the membrane specimens of a lizard and an elephant.
Hannah: They're making a flu vaccine out of elephants?
Me: Looks like it. Do you know who's in this episode?
Hannah: Peter Purves.
Me: Yes, but we've also just seen Michael Sheard, most famous for playing the headmaster in Grange Hill.
Hannah: I didn't see that.
Me: I've never watched it either, and as far as I'm concerned his most prominent role was the German building site manager from the first series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, but he also appeared in The Empire Strikes Back as well as six Doctor Who stories across the sixties, seventies and eighties. Oh, and he played Adolf Hitler in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Hannah: Oh, okay.
Me: He's played Hitler an awful lot, come to think of it.
Hannah: And a flap of skin will be watching.
Me: At least we don't have to hear Britney Spears this time.
Immediately after the TARDIS leaves, we get a glorious fifteen-second sequence of a Monoid slowly reversing his truck out of shot. It's so priceless that I can't even bring myself to have a go at defending it.
Hannah: That's just bad.
The TARDIS re-materialises in its next destination, as a lead-in to the next story.
Hannah: They're in another jungle?
Then she realises the twist: we're back on the Ark, and the story's not over yet.
Hannah: Aw, the TARDIS has taken them back to the same place in seven hundred years, so that they can see that everyone got on okay! Has the TARDIS broken, or is it bringing them back there on purpose?
The statue has now been completed, and Hannah can't help but notice that it has more hair and fewer eyes than she was expecting.
Hannah: I thought it was supposed to be a human head?
Me: It was.
Hannah: Ah. So there's been a Monoid uprising.
The Return [Episode 3]
Hannah isn't convinced that seven hundred years' worth of artistry have gone into that statue.
Hannah: It's got such a dumpy little head.
The Monoids have now found a way of speaking with the voice of Roy Skelton, and our heroes are arrested (again) and taken away to be imprisoned in the security kitchen.
Hannah: "Security kitchen"?
Me: Yes, I think that's probably my favourite phrase ever in Doctor Who.
Hannah: Perhaps the political bin room was full.
The Monoids are packing a boatload of resentment for being treated as "secondary beings" for so many centuries.
Hannah: I thought they were relatively equal before. It didn't seem like they were badly treated.
Me: It's been seven hundred years and a few dozen generations since then. A lot of other things may have happened.
Hannah: Seven hundred years for the true nature of humans to come through and oppress things.
They also refer to themselves by number, with the leader being known as "One".
Hannah: They don't have names?
Me: Not unless his name is Juan.
Hannah: I notice the fashion hasn't changed in seven hundred years.
As the Ark finally approaches its destination, the planet Refusis II, the Doctor and Dodo are dispatched to investigate the natives. Hannah isn't thrilled at the prospect of more invisible aliens (it's a bit soon after The Daleks' Master Plan), but at least it's a handy way of doing a non-humanoid race without having to make them look convincing. Not that you'd know it from the furnishings; she wearily observes all the distinctly terrestrial-looking doors, windows and dressing tables, until she realises that the Refusians have been making arrangements for the new settlers.
Hannah: Oh, that's why it looks all human! They made it for them! How very kind.
She's even more delighted to find that the security kitchen is capable of producing food just by dropping powder into a pot of water.
Hannah: (laughing) Magic chicken!
Me: Yep, just add water. It's about as retro as futuristic food can possibly get.
The episode concludes with the Doctor and Dodo facing the possibility that they may have to stay on the planet for the rest of their lives.
Hannah: Cliffhanger! Except it's not, because we know they don't.
The Bomb [Episode 4]
While I spend the episode eating brie and wondering how the Refusians manage to reproduce, Hannah picks apart the special effects on the Ark's launcher ships.
Hannah: I can see the strings.
Me: Is this what you're like when you watch Thunderbirds?
Hannah: Yes.
The scouting party consists of Monoids named Two, Three, and...
Hannah: Oh, he's Sixty-Three, is he? Redshirt.
Hannah is devastated when the Monoids kill their human lackey.
Hannah: Awww!
Me: What do you mean "awww"?
Hannah: Aw, he was so devoted.
Me: To the evil aliens.
Hannah: Yes! He was loyal. Ish.
Me: He wasn't loyal to his own people.
Hannah: And actually he did sell the Monoids out.
Before I can start probing too far into this moral maze, the Monoids' bomb is defused and the Refusians have forced both sides into a peace treaty. Then we get another TARDIS departure scene, although sadly not as unintentionally hilarious as last time.
Hannah: They're being driven off by a guardian this time, who looks a lot like the guy who played Lupin in Harry Potter.
Me: David Thewlis? He would have been about three years old here.
Hannah: I know, it looks just like him.
Back on board, Steven and Dodo have changed into some contemporary groovy gear in preparation for the next story.
Hannah: Oooh! Everyone's very sixties. I don't... eurgh.
Me: What do you mean, "eurgh"?
Hannah: I don't like the sixties.
Me: Oh, for heaven's sake.
The Score
Hannah: I've always liked that overall idea, an ark of people surviving, especially when there's more than one species that have to try and co-habit. It's almost always the case that the humans end up being bastards and enslaving people to some degree, and then get their comeuppance, but it usually ends with something along the lines of "you were justified but let's have peace, it's a much better idea." The only thing that's really wrong with it is that the Monoid costumes are so ridiculous that they couldn't walk; one guy even tripped over.
Me: Any thoughts on the story structure?
Hannah: I liked the second half a lot more than the first half; the first half was full of stupid people shouting a lot and not believing anything, which always annoys me.
Me: The idea of having the story in two halves is to see the cause and effect of what happens after the Doctor has gone. Normally he just solves a problem and then buggers off and doesn't stick around to see the long-term consequences of his interference, even though there could be all kinds of repercussions that are entirely his fault. It's something they've done a couple of times in the new series, like when Eccleston shuts down an evil news organisation and walks away thinking he's resolved everything, then comes back half a series later to find that his good deed has caused the decline of the human race and paved the way for a Dalek takeover.
Hannah: I like it, it makes you think more. Maybe it could have been longer - each segment was only two episodes long - but it's well-balanced the way it was, and it works. It's a nice neat little four-episode story, and I liked the twist.
8/10
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