Hannah: How long is this story?
Damn.
Me: I think it's a mistake to think too much about how long each story is. Audiences at the time wouldn't have known how many episodes it would be, they had no idea when each one would begin or end...
Hannah: Fine, fine. It doesn't matter.
Me: Alright then, full disclosure...
Hannah: Is this the one with seven or eight episodes?
Me: Er, no...
Hannah: Longer than that?
Me: It's twelve episodes.
Hannah: And how many of them still exist?
Me: Three.
Her reaction tells me everything I need to know about how much she's looking forward to this.
Me: Let's just take it one episode at a time. This story is directed by your favourite director.
Hannah: I don't have a favourite director.
Me: You liked Douglas Camfield.
Hannah: Oh, yeah. The one who does good directing.
Me: That's the one.
The Nightmare Begins [Episode 1]
Hannah: Oh look, it's the jungle again. These aren't the same people from before, are they?
Me: No, they all died.
Hannah: I was wondering if this was a flashback.
Me: So you're assuming this is following on from "Mission to the Unknown"?
Hannah: Yeah, it's a jungle planet. Although it's not clear how much time has passed.
We are indeed back on Kembel.
Hannah: Why has the TARDIS come here, exactly when and where it was needed? It could have turned up two weeks later when it's all happened and everybody's dead.
Me: This takes place a few months after the cutaway episode we saw.
Hannah: But the Doctor is still in time to help.
Me: He's not in time to help any of the people who died last time.
Hannah: He's still in time to help the solar system.
Me: It's already been established that the TARDIS is sentient, so the popular theory is that it just takes him wherever he needs to be.
Hannah: But surely it knows that right now it needs to help Steven get better, so where he needs to be is somewhere near a hospital. It's a time and space machine, so the TARDIS can decide to take them here after Steven's better and the Doctor would still be there in time to help before anything happens.
Despite being familiar (ish) with the Brigadier from future Doctor Who stories, she fails to recognise Nicholas Courtney as the actor playing Bret Vyon, although admittedly it's tricky when you can't see any movement. Besides, she's more concerned about the Doctor's new companion, Katarina.
Hannah: Why did they choose her?
Me: Why not her?
Hannah: She was only introduced in the last episode; she looked after Vicki and then she ended up in the TARDIS by mistake, and now suddenly she's been kidnapped from her time and thinks she's dead. It's a very interesting way to acquire a companion, however long she's there for.
Me: It's a bit different, isn't it?
Hannah: She also has absolutely no idea what's going on. She thinks this is the afterlife.
Me: Vicki was originally going to be in this story, but when they wrote her out last week they needed to write someone else in quickly. That's why they had to build up Katarina's part, so that she could come on board.
Hannah: I wonder how long she's going to last. She's probably going to walk off-screen right now and turn into a Varga plant.
Me: Do you not think that would seem a bit strange, introducing her as a new companion in the previous story just to write her out in this one?
She finds it slightly predictable that Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System is evil and allied with the Daleks, but still considers it a fun development even if his motives aren't immediately clear.
Hannah: What could he possibly gain from an alliance with the Daleks that he hasn't already got from being emperor of the solar system?
Me: He wants to be emperor of the universe.
Hannah: Oh.
Day of Armageddon [Episode 2]
I explain to Hannah that episodes 1-5 & 7 are written by Terry Nation, and episodes 6 & 8-12 are written by Dennis Spooner.
Hannah: So is this all going to be a bit random and weird and disjointed?
Me: I couldn't possibly comment. We'll just have to see what you make of it.
Hannah: So far it's been okay.
Me: It's been very coherent so far, I'll grant you, but there's still a long way to go.
Luckily, we've come to the first of our three existing episodes (the others being episodes 5 and 10).
Hannah: So where did they find this one?
Me: I'm not sure, but the other two episodes were found in the basement of a Mormon church.
Hannah: Very odd.
The delegates from "Mission to the Unknown" are back; Hannah finds the concept of Dalek collaborators as incongruous as she did last time, so it comes as something of a relief to her when the Daleks declare their plan to eliminate Chen once he's served his purpose.
Hannah: See, I told you! They don't do allies.
Me: Nobody does. Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans... you can't trust any of them.
Hannah: Chen has got the weirdest kind of six-pack nipple shirt going on. Like a cat.
Me: Some eye-witness accounts claim that his skin was painted blue on-set, although there's no reference to it in the script and according to other sources he's actually brown.
Hannah: Huh. Shame you can't tell in black and white. Why is one of the delegates bouncing around in a body suit?
Me: I thought you liked alien movement choreography.
Hannah: I do. Maybe he's from a planet that has much higher gravity, so he feels all weightless and bouncy here.
Me: And if this episode hadn't been recovered in 2004 we'd never have known. Makes you wonder what other visual flourishes we'll never find out about.
Katarina, meanwhile, is having the ultimate "fish out of water" experience; one minute she's living in Ancient Troy, the next she's running around a jungle planet full of Daleks and homicidal plants. Luckily she's taking it all in her stride, which is just as well because the Doctor and Bret are having another disagreement.
Hannah: They both have valid points to make, there's no need for them to be mean to each other. Meanwhile Katarina is just walking along, listening to them argue and thinking "the afterlife's not quite what they said it would be."
Me: Bless her. She really has no idea what's going on.
Hannah: Have I mentioned that Bret looks like a Thunderbird?
Me: You haven't.
Hannah: I don't mean one of the spaceships, I mean a member of the Thunderbirds team. He doesn't look like a giant cargo ship or a rocket or a little yellow submarine. It's the big sash, basically. It's just the big sash.
She's thoroughly unconvinced when the Doctor manages to create a diversion and makes off with the taranium core that powers the Dalek's ultimate weapon, the Time Destructor ("Like they'd leave that behind? Really?!"). But all things considered, she's enjoying this story so far; she likes the pacing and the dialogue, and the tension escalates when Bret decides that the Doctor isn't going to make it back and prepares Mavic Chen's spaceship for takeoff, with Steven and Katarina in tow.
Hannah: Katarina is a very interesting companion, but she's not particularly useful. Bret is useful, though. Maybe the Doctor will keep him, even though they argue a lot.
Devil's Planet [Episode 3]
The cliffhanger is unceremoniously resolved when the Doctor catches up to his companions in the nick of time.
Hannah: Oh, he did make it. That's a disappointing cliffhanger. I really thought they were going to leave without him and he was going to spend the next episode trying to find them again, but instead he gets there and they're all leaving together. Bit anticlimactic.
When our heroes find Marc Cory's tape recording from "Mission to the Unknown" she appreciates the attempt at some continuity, even if it's far too late to be remotely useful because the recording just confirms everything they've already discovered for themselves. Eventually, her attention turns to more pressing matters.
Hannah: Why is Steven wearing a corduroy jacket? At the end of the last story he was wearing Greek armour and at some point he's changed into a very dapper suit.
While Hannah ponders this and the other big questions raised by this story (like whether or not Daleks have skeletons) the stolen ship crashes on a prison planet, appositely named Desperus.
Hannah: Because it's the planet of desperation.
Me: Yes, you may have noticed that Terry Nation likes to give his planets some very unimaginative names. The one with the oceans is called Marinus, the desert planet is called Aridius - even though it wasn't originally a desert when the natives lived there - and the home of the Mechanoids is called Mechanus.
Hannah: I like the theme of having a penal colony on a whole planet. So many good stories use it, although they probably came after this. Shame it's just a brief plot point. And I know Steven was an astronaut, but he's about 1,600 years out of his time and he's still trying to backseat drive.
The episode concludes with one of the convicts breaking into the ship and taking Katarina hostage.
Hannah: Oh no! How did one of them get in? They should have just electrocuted everyone on the planet's surface. Now they've distressed the poor young girl.
The Traitors [Episode 4]
Fortunately one of the most memorable moments of this story still survives as a short clip, and Hannah watches in shock as Katarina sacrifices herself by opening the airlock and ejecting herself and her captor into space.
Hannah: Oooh. She did that to herself? On purpose?
Me: I think that's what we're supposed to assume, yes.
Hannah: She didn't last many episodes then.
The Doctor delivers a moving speech, which Hannah seems to accept as a fitting eulogy...
Hannah: Aw, that's really s-- oh, was there really any need to do that?
...and is spoiled only by the sight of Katarina's corpse drifting through space.
Hannah: This is terrifying for a children's show! A young woman is held hostage and then kills herself. Oh well, it moved the plot along. And was very sad.
Me: The first ever companion death.
Hannah: It's the year 4000. Technically Ian and Barbara are dead.
Me: That was originally going to be Vicki, before she ended up being written out in the previous story.
Hannah: Vicki wouldn't have killed herself.
In fact this episode is turning into a bit of a bloodbath. When Sara Kingdom turns up and shoots Bret dead, Hannah is stunned.
Hannah: Oh, now he dies! He was quite helpful and good. There's a lot of death this episode, lots of child-friendly shooting murders. The Doctor and Steven are very lucky to have gotten out of every situation so far.
Counter Plot [Episode 5]
The Doctor and Steven attempt to escape from Sara by taking refuge in a room where an experiment is taking place; Hannah immediately notices the capsule of white mice in the centre of the room.
Hannah: Maybe they're designing a new world.
Me: Well... let's come back to that later.
Hannah: I'm making a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference.
Me: I know.
The experiment involves transporting the mice to another planet, as well as anyone else who happens to be unlucky enough to wander into the room at the critical moment. Hannah is appalled at this oversight in the plant's health and safety policy.
Hannah: Why didn't they check the room, whoever's doing this experiment? Why did they leave it open? Why on earth wouldn't they lock the door? No scientist would leave that door unlocked.
Even more unsettling are the close-ups of everyone's faces, contorted in pain and bathed in white light.
Hannah: That's incredibly creepy!
Me: What, the effect?
Hannah: Yes. I don't like it.
Me: It's only light.
Hannah: His face went completely white except for two black eyes and a grimace!
Next we see our heroes being transmitted through space; once again, the "special" effects aren't quite up to Hannah's standards.
Hannah: They're on trampolines! That's just weird! What was their direction for that sequence? "Keep a straight face and jump up and down on this trampoline, and I'll film you in slow motion." So they've been "molecularly disseminated"?
Me: Apparently.
Hannah: Is that like the Star Trek transporter beam?
Me: How would I know? I don't watch Star Trek.
Hannah: You get broken down into nothing, transported and then reassembled.
Me: Pretty much.
Hannah: Which is impossible. And God only knows what that kind of experiment would do to the taranium.
Terry Nation's gift for imaginative planet names continues when the Doctor, Steven, Sara and the mice are reconstituted on a planet covered in swamps, conveniently named Mira.
Hannah: That would be the best kind of set to design. Loads of plants and dry ice everywhere. Maybe they saved some money and used the plants from the Kembel set.
Elsewhere the actor Maurice Browning, playing Chen's co-conspirator Karlton, seems to be making a strong impression.
Hannah: He's... very interesting.
Me: Why?
Hannah: He enunciates in a particular manner. He feels like someone who does a lot of stage work.
There's a very funny moment when the Daleks come across the mice and assume that these mysterious white creatures must be hostile; Hannah loves this, but is devastated when the inevitable happens and the small furry threat is exterminated.
Hannah: No, not the mice! Poor mice.
The Daleks seem to be under the impression that the mice may possess the secret of pan-dimensional travel.
Me: Douglas Adams would have been thirteen when this episode was broadcast, and would most likely have watched it. So who knows, maybe this is where he got the idea of pan-dimensional mice in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Hannah: Possibly. But these aren't pan-dimensional beings, they're Earth beings that were transported pan-dimensionally.
Me: Yes, but it's easy to see how you might arrive at that idea after watching this episode.
As Sara starts to believe the Doctor and Steven's story and realises that Chen is not the diligent leader he appears to be, Hannah is impressed with the Doctor's people skills.
Hannah: That's the nicest he's been in a while.
She's almost speechless when Sara reveals that Bret Vyon was her brother and that she committed fratricide in the line of duty.
Hannah: Wow. She really was brainwashed. Did you say this was by the director I liked?
Me: Yes.
Hannah: I can tell. Not just static shots. Interesting zooms.
As the credits roll, we find that George Pollock has a lot to answer for.
Hannah: "Special photographic transparencies"?
Me: That'll be the special effects when they were disseminated.
Hannah: So he's to blame.
Coronas of the Sun [Episode 6]
Hannah is still enjoying Mavic Chen, but his alliance with the Daleks doesn't seem to be running entirely smoothly.
Hannah: Daleks seem to panic a lot.
Me: They're just very passionate about what they do.
The Doctor commandeers an enemy ship for the second time so far in this adventure (presumably risk assessment isn't a huge priority for the Daleks or their allies) and sets about creating a fake taranium core. Steven suggests using the ship's "gravity force" as a power source.
Hannah: How does that work? How can you have something that generates enough gravitational force to convert it into some kind of useful energy?
Nevertheless, Steven takes it upon himself to attempt some DIY and wires up the taranium to the ship, with some fairly incomprehensible results.
Hannah: Is this where he dies?
Me: It would be an interesting way to write out a companion, wouldn't it? Accidentally electrocuting himself in the middle of the story as he tampers with some wiring.
Hannah: This is very strange science, even by Doctor Who standards. Steven has been electrocuted, but it's a special kind of electrocuted and it somehow gives him special powers of invincibility and muteness.
Fortunately the Doctor has managed to cobble together the fake taranium core, and our heroes make their escape in the TARDIS after handing the replica over to the enemy. Everything appears to be wrapped up nicely... but there's still six episodes to go.
Hannah: So... it's only halfway through this story, but they're back in the TARDIS and going somewhere random?
Me: Yes?
Hannah: With another person who didn't really want to be there. How will the story continue now that they've gone somewhere else?
Oh boy...
The Feast of Steven [Episode 7]
As you may have guessed from the episode title...
Me: It's a Christmas episode!
Hannah: Is that why we're drinking mulled wine?
Me: I just thought it would add a bit of atmosphere.
Hannah: Can we skip this one?
Me: Well, technically yes, because although it's episode 7 it's not really part of the story as such. It was designed to function as a one-off standalone episode, a piece of light entertainment for Christmas Day that families can watch without being thrown into the middle of a fairly grim 12-part story, and then the main plot picks up again in episode 8. And it's very visual, so it's probably not a good one to watch as a reconstruction. But let's persevere.
And so, once Hannah has gotten over her incredulity that the polluted atmosphere in 1960s Liverpool is apparently far more toxic than any alien planet we've seen thus far, we settle down to watch the only episode to be shown on Christmas Day before they became a regular thing in 2005.
The Doctor identifies a man at the police station as the merchant from the marketplace at Jaffa; this is met with a nonplussed "what" from Hannah, until I point out that it's the same actor from The Crusade.
Hannah: Why would they do that? Could they not find any other ways of having light entertainment on Christmas Day? They had to have a fourth-wall joke?
Me: Yes, this episode is the Deadpool of its time. It's supposed to be a whimsical comedy, so try not to think about it too much.
After spending half an episode in present-day England, it's time for some frolics in a 1920s Hollywood film studio. That's what the captions and still images are telling us, anyway. Mostly we can just hear screaming.
Hannah: Well, this is light and entertaining. If I couldn't see what was happening I'd think someone had just discovered a mutilated body.
This particular vignette turns into a series of comedy capers as our heroes wander through the production of various silent films, including a Charlie Chaplin film and an homage to the Keystone Cops. Unfortunately it's all so visual that it's often very difficult to make out what's going on.
Hannah: This is awful. It's just screaming.
Me: It only seems that way because we can't see what's happening.
Hannah: Even if we could, it's still just screaming.
Me: Yes, farcical comedy doesn't really work without the pictures.
Hannah: I could probably make films or TV. You just need to get loads of people to scream and shout.
There's just time for the Doctor to have a quick chat with another famous person before departing, although unfortunately it's about 20 years too early to hear a rendition of "White Christmas".
Hannah: That was supposed to be Bing Crosby?
Me: A very anachronistic Bing Crosby, yes. He wouldn't actually have been there at that time, and nothing he said actually matches up with his real life.
Hannah: This episode doesn't feel very Christmassy. I like that they were randomly on Earth on Christmas Day earlier, though. That was nice.
The episode famously (and controversially) ends with the Doctor turning to the camera and wishing all the viewers at home a Merry Christmas. This appears to be the crowning touch for Hannah.
Hannah: What a stupid episode!
Me: Now that's how you break a fourth wall.
Hannah: It's silly. Well, the whole thing's silly. So they accidentally land somewhere where it's Christmas, then they land somewhere else where it isn't Christmas, and then they decide it's Christmas. I thought there was the rule of thirds? Everything works better in three parts. I know it's only 23 minutes but they just did half and half.
Me: Would it surprise you to learn that--
Hannah: It was written last minute?
Me: Of all the 97 missing episodes, this is the one I most want to be recovered.
Hannah: What, not The Myth Makers?
Me: That would have been my first choice for a whole story, but for individual episodes it's got to be this one. Firstly, it's utterly unique, so it would be one of the most interesting ones to have back. Secondly, it's one of the episodes that loses the most from not being able to see what's going on. Thirdly, it's always nice to have a Christmas special. And I really want to see Hartnell addressing the camera.
Hannah: I don't mind it existing...
Me: Well, it doesn't.
Hannah: No, I mean at first I thought it was stupid to shoehorn it into the middle of a story, but if they want to appeal to their audience I understand they need to fit something in, so that they know there aren't children screaming for their lives on Christmas Day.
Me: To be fair it's a bit awkward having to do it in the middle of a 12-part story, but I think they've pulled it off about as well as could be expected.
Hannah: And it's a bit weird because they've got a companion who... well she's not even a companion, she's someone who's got accidentally caught up with them.
Me: That's pretty much all companions.
Hannah: Yeah, but I mean she was against them. She wanted to kill them. She killed Bret, her own brother, but apparently now it's fine and they decide to have a Christmas drink together.
Me: She's remorseful.
Hannah: It's a bit weird.
Me: Unfortunately this is the only missing episode that we know will never be recovered. When this story was sold overseas there was no reason to include an episode that had no bearing on the rest of the plot and could only be shown at Christmas, so no copies were ever made, which means this is the only episode that is definitely lost forever.
Hannah: That's a shame.
Hannah agrees that this episode should be judged on its own terms, without any bearing on her evaluation of the overall story.
Hannah: When I do a review of this whole story, I'm not going to include this one. Do you want it to have its own individual score?
Me: Go ahead.
Hannah: I like the idea of them being on a film set, and I like the idea of them getting into trouble with the police because they've got a police box and it's all funny and confused. But from what we can hear it sounds very chaotic, and I don't like that kind of direction where everything's all over the place and people are screaming. So it's kind of middle-of-the-road. There's no story, it doesn't go anywhere...
Me: It's not supposed to, it's just a bit of inconsequential entertainment for Christmas. Like "Voyage of the Damned".
Hannah: That one had a beginning, a middle and an end.
Me: Yeah, but none of them were particularly satisfying.
Hannah: I'd only give this a 5.
Volcano [Episode 8]
The one-episode digression into festive surrealism is over and it's back to business as usual. The TARDIS materialises in the middle of a cricket match.
Hannah: Are they in the middle of Lord's?
Me: It's the Oval.
Hannah: Did they get the commentators of the day to do this?
Me: No, they seem to have missed that particular trick.
Hannah: Pity. I like it when they do that.
The cricket commentators appear to be completely unfazed by this, carrying on as normal and checking to see if anything like this has ever happened in the game before. Three episodes after the incident with the mice, there seems to be a pattern emerging.
Me: Do you feel like we've had this particular déjà vu experience somewhere before?
Hannah: I was going to say, it feels like another Douglas Adams thing.
Me: The mice were a bit more of a stretch, and the similarity didn't go much further than a vague idea, but this scene is almost identical in tone and content to the opening of Life, the Universe and Everything. The protagonist suddenly materialising at a famous cricket venue, played for surreal sci-fi humour and with the commentators taking it all in their stride. It's so similar... can it be a coincidence? Who knows?
Hannah: Probably not. Oh, I wish we could ask him. "Are you a plagiarist?"
Me: It may not even have been consciously done; it might have just been one of those things you see on TV and it just makes such an impression on you and sticks in your mind until you start writing something 15 years later.
Hannah: By the way, how can the Doctor have lived in the sixties for so long and not know what cricket is?
Meanwhile, the Daleks (remember the Daleks?) have discovered the counterfeit taranium, after a fair bit of posturing and the ruthless extermination of one of the delegates. Even Chen seems horrified.
Hannah: These political bits are necessary and help build on how evil the Daleks are, but it's starting to slow the pace of the episode.
When Daleks deploy their own time machine to give chase and we see the TARDIS being pursued through time and space (again), Hannah notices that the sequence of events isn't quite matching up.
Hannah: Someone's following them though space and time, but the Daleks haven't left yet. Maybe it's the Monk, and he was able to fix the TARDIS after all. Went on a serious diet and managed to fit inside.
Yes, it's the meddling Monk, last seen stranded in Saxon Northumbria at the end of The Time Meddler.
Hannah: I don't like being right!
Me: Why?
Hannah: Because it's boring! It's actually a really good surprise and I'm sorry I ruined it for myself. I thought he was just a one-off character before. I really want to know how he managed to fix his TARDIS; he says he bypassed the stolen piece, but with what? What materials? Rocks?
Last week's episode was broadcast on Christmas Day, so of course this week's episode was broadcast on New Year's Day. After the Doctor beats the Monk again and finally manages to depart, our next stop is the New Year celebrations in London.
Hannah: The Christmas one was shoehorned in to be Christmassy but it's even worse putting this into the middle of an episode.
Me: Surely it's no more intrusive than the cricket match scene?
Hannah: This has turned into another episode of The Chase.
Hannah was pleased to see the Monk again, even if it was only for one episode.
Hannah: I like that he just inconveniently pops up while the Doctor's already in the middle of another adventure. But does he survive the volcano planet? Are we ever going to see him again?
Me: He does turn up again in the Paul McGann audio adventures, played by Graeme Garden.
Hannah: I'll take that as a "no."
Golden Death [Episode 9]
The Daleks' time machine is finally up and running.
Hannah: I used to have a PC game that made those sounds.
Mavic Chen also seems to be in good health.
Hannah: He looks a lot darker!
Me: I think he's in shadow.
Hannah: Are you sure? I think they used a different paint this episode.
Me: It's hard to tell from the stills. Maybe he's got a tan from being out in the sun on Mira. Or it's high blood pressure from his alliance with the Daleks.
As in The Chase, Hannah questions why the Daleks can't materialise a few minutes before the TARDIS if they're giving chase in a time machine. Still, at least the new location tickles her fancy.
Hannah: Hmmm. Ancient Egypt. Is this the only glimpse of Egypt we get to see in the series? A brief stop-off in the middle of a story?
Me: What would you prefer?
Hannah: A whole six-part story. An Egyptian historical.
Me: I suppose it is the most obvious period that they haven't done yet.
Hannah: World War One?
Me: Probably too recent at this point to do as a straight historical. Besides, four episodes of the Battle of the Somme would have been a bit gloomy for a family show on Saturday evenings.
She's visibly upset when some Egyptians confront the Daleks; the result is predictably one-sided.
Hannah: It's stupid if they think they can attack big unknown metal boxes.
Me: It's around the 27th century BC. They're not that advanced.
Hannah: Ancient Egyptians were very intelligent. They were one of the first to use penicillin.
Me: That doesn't make them qualified to deal with homicidal war machines from the 40th century.
She's pleasantly surprised when the Monk turns up again, also in hot pursuit of the Doctor. Unfortunately he runs into Chen instead and gets coerced into teaming up with the Daleks.
Hannah: He's funny.
Me: Yeah, I love the Monk.
Hannah: Why is he still wearing his habit? He was only wearing it as a disguise last time because he was hiding in a monastery.
Me: Maybe--
Hannah: Don't! Don't.
Me: What?
Hannah: You were going to say maybe it's a habit.
Me: I was going to say maybe he likes it.
The Egyptian guards aren't much better at dealing with Steven and Sara than they are against the Daleks.
Hannah: Oh, I want Ian to come and do his little neck pinch! The guards are rubbish. One was asleep, and these can't see or hear someone sneaking up on them. They've got no peripheral vision.
As Steven and Sara search for the Doctor in one of the tombs, the cliffhanger sees a bandaged figure emerging from a sarcophagus.
Hannah: Er... no. I don't think so. There's not a mummy coming to life. That's just silly.
Me: Is that really the least realistic thing you've seen over the last nine episodes?
Hannah: Yes.
Escape Switch [Episode 10]
Me: This is the 100th episode, you know.
Hannah: Whoop-de-doo.
The mystery of the mummy doesn't keep Hannah guessing for very long.
Hannah: It's just the Monk tied up.
Me: To be fair, the children in the audience might have believed that it could be an actual mummy.
Hannah: He's fun. I like the way he continues to be a meddler, even when he's not messing around with time; he's trying to be sly and clever, but really just saving himself all the time.
Chen seems to be getting a little too complacent about his affiliation with the Daleks, and Hannah is amazed when he manages to get away with hitting one of them without being exterminated on the spot. Elsewhere, her faith in the intelligence of the Egyptians is restored when they overhear Chen's voice on the loudspeaker system.
Hannah: It's a lot more interesting than in The Aztecs. The Aztecs mostly took it for granted that Barbara was a god, but the Egyptians here don't just blindly assume that they're hearing the voice of the gods; they're suspicious because it doesn't fit in with their ideas of what their gods are like.
That said, the sight of a horde of Daleks wiping out the indigenous population clearly strikes a nerve.
Hannah: They can't possibly hurt the Daleks at all, this is sad! They're people who have absolutely no idea and they just get obliterated. It's not fair.
She soon cheers up when Hartnell fluffs Chen's name and calls him "Magic Chen", but when the Doctor finally hands over the real taranium core, she can't help but feel like the plot has been treading water for a while now.
Hannah: They've had to do a slow handover thing again to get the plot moving; nothing has changed in the last four episodes, except now they've got the real material after a bit of messing around.
The Monk somehow manages to returns to his TARDIS without realising that the Doctor has changed its shape to look like a police box ("Funny, but unbelievable"), or that the Doctor has stolen the directional unit from his ship and removed its ability to steer. When he ends up on an ice planet and realises he's now lost in time and space, Hannah has nothing but sympathy for him.
Hannah: Poor Monk.
But she's thrilled to see the Doctor installing the directional unit into his own TARDIS.
Hannah: Is this the point at which he can start controlling the TARDIS?
Me: Wait and see. Obviously he needs the Monk's directional unit to work, otherwise he won't be able to get back to Kembel.
Hannah: Yes. But is it a one-off? Does it overheat? Or is this where the TARDIS gets "fixed"?
The Abandoned Planet [Episode 11]
Hannah is excited to see the progression of the overall Doctor Who story and is hoping that this is the point at which the Doctor gains control of the TARDIS, so it comes as rather a disappointment when the directional unit burns out after making the trip to Kembel.
Hannah: Oh, so it's still broken! They're still lost. I like how they threw the Monk in again, because they needed a plausible reason for the Doctor to be able to go to a specific time and place just this once; he'd never be able to get back to Kembel if he hadn't cannibalised part of the Monk's ship. But they threw that in and then instantly took it away again. It was just dangling that little bit of hope that he'd finally get a working TARDIS.
She isn't the slightest bit interested that one of the delegates is Bryan Mosley, the actor who played Alf Roberts in Coronation Street, but she's delighted to see so many non-humanoid aliens on display.
Hannah: Aw, I like the chimney pot.
Me: You're very racist, aren't you?
Hannah: I like the space delegates. Basically I just like to see alien races being depicted. I like to see the level of imagination that the creators have. I'm just saying he looks like a stove.
Shortly after landing, Steven and Sara somehow manage to get separated from the Doctor in their search for the Dalek base. As before, Hannah is very impressed with the jungle set.
Hannah: It's a very noisy jungle.
Me: Why, because they're usually so quiet?
Hannah: No. I just like how realistic it is.
When Steven and Sara note the strange lack of Varga plants this time around, and eventually find the Dalek base completely deserted, Hannah is intrigued enough to postulate a theory.
Hannah: Hmmm. Maybe they've accidentally come too far into the future, and they're too late because it's already happened.
Me: Well the weapon is called the Time Destructor, so if it had already been activated I think you would probably have noticed.
Steven and Sara come across Mavic Chen, who appears to be finally losing his grip on reality after being betrayed by the Daleks. He insists to the other delegates that Sara is still loyal to him.
Hannah: Hmmm. I don't know if he really believes that, does he?
Me: It could be true, for all you know.
Hannah: Yeah, but... I hope not. I was starting to sort of like her a little bit.
Me: Starting to? After seven episodes?
Hannah: I never really liked her. She was loyal to a corrupt regime and she killed her own brother; she just doesn't seem like a nice person. She's made bad decisions.
Me: Well, in the service she was conditioned to be unquestioningly obedient...
Hannah: Exactly, that's why I don't like her.
Me: ...but she's changed since she met the Doctor.
Hannah: Yeah. So now you're left wondering whether she has actually reformed, or just going along with it because she sees it as her best option to get back to Earth and protect everyone. But she must realise that Mavic Chen is one of the baddies. She can't be that stupid.
They release Chen, reasoning that they can only defeat the Daleks with his help. He apparently dies when his ship explodes, only to turn up again in time for the cliffhanger so that he can force Steven and Sara into a Dalek bunker at gunpoint.
Hannah: I didn't think he would die that easily. Why did he fake his own death?
Me: Maybe he wanted to take them by surprise?
Hannah: Well it was certainly very surprising, I'll give him that.
Destruction of Time [Episode 12]
Me: Nearly there.
Hannah: It's slow going, watching something that doesn't exist.
Me: It's okay, we're on the final stretch now.
Now that we're on the home straight, it's time to see if Hannah has warmed to the Doctor's new travelling companion.
Me: So do you like Sara now?
Hannah: No! I don't know whose side she's on. Also she killed her brother.
Me: You wouldn't welcome her as the new companion, then?
Hannah: No, which is a shame because she's clearly going to be.
Me: I think she already is, isn't she?
Hannah: Yes. I don't welcome her.
Steven, Sara and Chen are accompanied by a Dalek escort and a very moody soundtrack.
Hannah: I like that music.
Me: Good.
Hannah: It's very nice music, it's like one of the sci-fi fantasy games I've played. Very atmospheric. Doesn't go with this scene, though.
Chen, who has been getting increasingly hysterical since the last episode, is now so completely unhinged that he believes he's still allied with the Daleks, in spite of all their unsubtle attempts to clarify the situation. As if his mental state weren't obvious enough, his triumphant hysterical screaming provides a vital clue.
Hannah: He's proper mad, isn't he?
Me: He is now, yeah.
Hannah: Has something happened to him, or has he suddenly realised he's out of his depth and he's just floundering?
Me: I don't know, he must have been a bit unbalanced in the first place but I think something inside him just snapped when the Daleks betrayed him earlier.
Hannah: I want to see a colour picture of him. See if he really is blue.
Not that it matters; the Daleks are just as troubled by Chen's behaviour as we are, and he's abruptly exterminated.
Meanwhile, the Doctor has taken the Time Destructor and activated it. The Daleks don't dare open fire in case it destroys the weapon, rendering them pretty much helpless.
Hannah: If only they had hands or something. That would be really helpful for them to stop people doing things.
It occurs to Hannah that, twelve episodes into the story, we still haven't been told what the Time Destructor actually does.
Hannah: What does it do? Erases something from all of time and space?
Me: You may find out soon.
Hannah: Or is it just a big threat that never gets explained, because it never actually turns on fully?
The Doctor urges his companions to make their escape, but Sara insists on staying behind. Suddenly the effect of the Time Destructor becomes all too apparent.
Hannah: Oh, is she getting old? So it's not a destroyer of time, it's a destroyer with time. It's a weapon that uses time.
Me: It just ages them to death, essentially.
Hannah: Ages everything to death. So all living matter on the planet will be destroyed. Oh well, that's good, Sara is probably going to die. Unless he can reverse it somehow. Does that mean the Doctor ages a lot? He's the one that's carrying it. If the Doctor is able to withstand it, he must have actually aged.
Me: He is ageing, it's just not visible because he ages much more slowly.
Hannah: And if everything around him has aged enough to actually rot away, he must be hundreds of years older by now. But it's not ageing everything evenly. All the plants have been eroded into dust, but the Doctor and Sara are still alive and able to move.
Me: Maybe the plants have extremely short life cycles on Kembel.
The taranium core finally burns itself out, but not before we see Sara gradually ageing to death.
Hannah: Oh, that's a nasty way to go. I've seen similar before and it's horrible.
As the Doctor and Steven mourn the loss of Bret, Katarina and Sara throughout their adventure, Hannah reflects on their Pyrrhic victory.
Hannah: They don't know how far it's affected. The entire universe could be destroyed. They haven't even checked--
Her critique of their efforts is interrupted by the credits.
Hannah: That's not an ending! They've just seen that everything has been obliterated as far as the eye can see, and they haven't even bothered to check that the Daleks around the corner are actually dead, whether or not the Earth was destroyed, anything! They're just thinking "it's probably fine, let's leave." What about beyond that to the next planet, or across the universe? If the Time Destructor is strong enough to destroy things like that, how far did the destruction go?
Me: Either way, it's a bit late for them to do anything about it now.
Hannah: The whole story has suddenly plummeted in my estimation. It didn't have an ending. Why is there a switch that reverses the direction, if both settings seem to destroy everything? It destroys by speeding up time and it also destroys by reversing time. Why did the fuel cell last such a short time? The Daleks intended to use it to destroy the entire solar system, so either they got their maths wrong and they would never have been able to do it, or that's exactly what they've just done by activating it on Kembel, in which case this is not a happy ending at all.
Me: It's obviously not a happy ending.
Hannah: Well, no, because they've just listed all the people that died and it's horrible, but at what point in Doctor Who does the Doctor ever think "Earth is destroyed, let's move on"? That means the entirety of the solar system at that time period ceases to exist. Which he never mentions again. The solar system is dead.
Me: Well, clearly it isn't.
Hannah: In which case their weapon was shit and was never going to work anyway if the fuel cell wasn't going to last long enough to destroy the whole solar system. And also they never explained why the Varga plants were missing.
The Score
Hannah: It wasn't awful.
Me: That doesn't sound like a recommendation.
Hannah: There were good bits. I do like a lot of it, particularly the world-building and the evil villain, and the return of the Monk, but at the same time it had some failings. There are lots of odd little bits that don't make sense; the plot holes bring it down a little, and I feel it was a weak ending. I liked its scope, but it could have been so much better.
7/10
Hannah: It would have been an 8 if it wasn't for the massive plot holes and the bad ending.
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