The TARDIS arrives in December 1986 at a South Pole Space Tracking station where the personnel, under the command of General Cutler, are engaged in trying to talk down a manned space capsule that has got into difficulty. The base is invaded by a force of alien Cybermen. The Cybermen’s world, Mondas, is draining energy from Earth - once its ‘twin planet’ - and the situation will soon become critical.
The Tenth Planet is a very special and very unique story in the annals of Doctor Who history. It’s a story that is all about ageing, about life and death, about endings and beginnings. We see an increasingly frail Doctor, our hero over three seasons become frail with his age over the course of four episodes, succumbing to the end that we all must as he seemingly dies in the TARDIS before his renewal. Conversely we’re introduced to the Cybermen, beings still recognisably human at this point who’ve undergone a renewal of their own, augmented with technology to avoid the ageing and death that befalls our hero. Even the dead planet of Mondas leeches energy from its twin planet Earth so it might be reborn and live again.
The dark vision of Dr. Kit Pedlar, the Cybermen are a stark warning toward the natural conclusion of mans obsession with technology and “bettering” oneself through cosmetic surgery. They are truly a terrifying prospect. They bring a new kind of fear to the show, these are not mutants of a far off galaxy in a very inhuman Dalek casing, not exotic alien life such as Sensorites or Monoids, these monsters are all too much like you and me. One day, they just may be.
While not as technically advanced or as iconic outside of fandom as their later look, the Cybermen here are excellently designed and a far-cry from the faceless robots they would become. The cloth masks over their faces and exposed hands leave enough of their humanity visible to leave no doubt as to what they were, their “sing-song” voices perfectly suited to their premise, eerie and haunting. There is no stomping legions of Iron Man clones here, no tin can robots defeated by gold and no emotional responses that would plague later stories, here the. Cybermen are cold, ruthless and purely logical. Just as it should always have been.
The Tenth Planet, like The War Machines, is almost a prototype for stories that would become commonplace throughout the show’s next decade as the invasion and terror is brought into a recognisable Earth of the near future, as a base is laid siege by an external menace. The formula would be repeated ad infinitum throughout Patrick Troughton’s time on the show in classics such as The Moonbase, The Ice Warriors and The Web of Fear. Jon Pertwee’s famous adage about meeting a yeti on the loo in Tooting Bec really saw it’s beginnings here, the monsters are no longer in the safety of space or the far future, the monsters are just around the corner and the technology that creates them is here and now.
William Hartnell’s final performance is a triumph. It’s no secret how much the great man beloved his role as The Doctor and he seems determined to go out on a high. There is no bumbling old man here, this Doctor is masterful and in possession of all the facts, intense and indignant at events before him. The Doctor’s role, beset by his age, can be seen as a euphemism for Hartnell himself, mustering one last final reserve of his energies to step once more into the breach, to make one last Herculean effort as he staggers toward his regeneration and one last date with destiny.
Taking a topical note, it wouldn’t be right not to mention the missing episode four, possibly the most sought after episode no longer in the BBC’s archive (for now at least. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink). The animated episode falls somewhere between The Ice Warriors and The Reign of Terror in terms of quality, more in-keeping with the source material than the latter but not quite as polished in terms of quality. The change to animation is somewhat jarring, the quality of the image improving to an extent it doesn’t quite seem to fit with the archive footage proceeding it, a problem that has existed throughout the animated phase of the missing episodes non-existence. The characters are well rendered and the Cybermen are of particular note in a very valid and worthy endeavour by Thetamation. A heavy improvement on the disappointing Ice Warriors.
The phrase “game changer” is thrown around a little too much these days, but the first regeneration is the very definition of a game changing moment. This stroke of genius has allowed the show to plausibly recast it’s lead to the present day and undoubtedly added to it’s longevity far more than a simple recasting would. What’s now a national event, a moment of excitement as we welcome a new Doctor, at the time of the first regeneration it must have truly have been genuine shock, a moment of pure confusion and wonder. That moment can never be recaptured.
The Tenth Planet is a landmark serial in the Doctor Who canon, it’s a story that stands at the waypoint of the Hartnell and Troughton eras. Intelligently written and wonderfully acted, all the while introducing new themes and concepts, it’s legacy cannot be underestimated, it is a final moment in the sun for the man who began it all in that junkyard in 1963. A true classic.
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Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 or region free DVD player in order to play The TARDIS arrives in December 1986 at a South Pole Space Tracking station where the personnel, under the command of General Cutler, are engaged in trying to talk down a manned space capsule that has got into difficulty. The base is invaded by a force of alien Cybermen. The Cybermen's world, Mondas, is draining energy from Earth - once its 'twin planet' - and the situation will soon become critical. |
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