Before we dive into this one, Sarah, can I point out that we have passed the midway point of the Troughton era? Just the other day, it seems, we were watching him sneak around in crafty disguises and obsess over hats. Feels like another era entirely.
Sarah -
Oh my, time truly does fly when you’re having fun! This story is a perfect mid-point. I’m just going to tell you right now that I loved it! This was my first time watching The Web of Fear. I had planned to dash off the first two episodes and go about my business, but ended up watching the entire thing in one day.
Harry -
After the monster-free and dialogue-heavy slog of "The Enemy of the World", I welcomed this story.
Sarah -
There’s nothing like running into old friends – and enemies! Professor Travers and his yeti are back, thirty or so years after we met them in Tibet. We also get to meet an old friend for the first time, but more on that later.
The opening scenes in the TARDIS are wonderful. After the struggle to close the doors and right the ship following Salamader’s ejection, everything just gets so homey. The Doctor munching on a sandwich while Jamie tries to get him to focus on the flashing light on the TARDIS control. Victoria emerging in what she perceives as a fetching outfit, only to be ignored by Jamie, who gets a nudge from the Doctor before he grunts a compliment. Considering his obsession with her wardrobe in past stories, you’d think he’d show more interest, eh? Because the stories are always set somewhere new, we need these scenes to establish the characters and string the stories together.
Harry -
Only Patrick Troughton could make eating a sandwich so amusing.
Sarah -
That he could!
Back to the flashing light, it seems to be related to the TARDIS being stopped and covered with a web-like substance that eventually disappears. The TARDIS eventually materializes in the Covent Garden Underground Station. I found myself wondering how they got permission to film in the Underground, but it was all a set! Nice work by David Myerscough-Jones, I must say.
Harry -
The Underground scenes were wonderfully atmospheric. The same goes for the opening scene between Julius Silverstein and the Traverses. The heated exchange between Edward and Julius was intensely acted and maybe just a bit silly with the facial expressions, but I liked it.
Sarah -
It set the tone wonderfully!
Harry -
Meanwhile, our travelers find themselves in a mysterious, post-apocalyptic London enveloped in silence, littered with corpses and swarming with soldiers. Paranoia and suspicion immediately set in.
Sarah -
The creepy atmosphere continues, in our underground base under siege!
Harry -
We have another "Doctor Lite" episode in part two, but it wasn't that much of a hindrance. Jamie and Victoria's encounters with Travers and with the military kept me in thrall.
Sarah -
I almost didn’t notice the Doctor’s absence. Jamie and Victoria are more than enough to keep one’s attention.
Harry -
Just when the story might have started to flag, a tall, enigmatic Colonel appears on the scene to shake things up again...
Sarah -
Did you squee with joy and jump out of your chair just a little bit, like I did?
Harry -
That voice - it was perfect from the first.
I had never seen Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart's first appearance in Doctor Who, and this was not what I expected. He's as much a suspect as several other characters that the Doctor believes is in league with the Great Intelligence. Not one character stops to demand Lethbridge-Stewart's official credentials or get a full explanation of his purpose. He operates with crisp command and a voice of authority and everyone falls in line.
Sarah -
It’s an epically momentous event…and no one knows it! The Colonel (how wrong does it feel to type that) sweeps in with pure authority – how could they not fall in line?
I really liked the cloud of suspicion hanging over everyone. We, of course, know that Lethbridge-Stewart isn’t the plant, but no one else does – so he’s just as, if not more, suspicious than everyone else.
Harry -
I'm pretty sure UNIT is not even mentioned in this story. I wonder if writers Haisman and Lincoln or producer Peter Bryant had any inkling of the iconic character they were creating - one whose name has been carried down to the very latest Doctor Who story!
Sarah -
Nope, we’re pre-UNIT! Nicholas Courtney had no idea what he was getting into, did he? Instead of a few weeks of work, he got forty years of being one of the most beloved characters on Doctor Who. I appreciate how fully formed The Brig (Yeah, I said it) is from the beginning.
Harry -
His familiar character traits are present from the very start.
Sarah -
Back to "The Web of Fear", can you think of a story that has had as high a body count as this one?
Harry -
At times it was hard to tell from watching the recon, but there was that one epic gun battle with the Yeti that seemed to go on for half an episode. In fact, part four starts with a Yeti attack, features that long battle, and ends with another Yeti attack. Epic!
Sarah -
It seemed to never stop!
Harry -
While part four allowed everyone a chance to regroup and plan how to combat the Great Intelligence, part five offered us the chilling confrontation when it possessed Travers and spoke through him. His whispery horror voice brought me right back to those eerie scenes with Padmasambhava in Tibet.
Sarah -
Chilling is the perfect word to describe the scene. Poor Travers.
Harry -
Perhaps the most horrifying moment of the entire story was after the Great Intelligence announced that it wanted to absorb the Doctor's brain, and he told Jamie and Victoria that they'd have to look after him in a child-like state. Too awful to contemplate.
Sarah -
Not to mention that they would be trapped in that time and place, which was not their own, unless they could figure out how to pilot the TARDIS!
Harry -
There's a real feeling of everyone being pinned down in a corner in this story. They literally are, with the fungus slowly surrounding the base and the Yeti barging around terrorizing everyone, it seems as though all is lost. But leave it to the Doctor and his tinkering. He works well with Anne Travers to take control of a Yeti. Before I forget, I liked how the Yeti in this story made growling sounds - even though it didn't make them any less adorably cuddly.
Sarah -
We haven’t talked about Anne Travers yet! How smashing is she? The soldiers clearly don’t know how to deal with a female scientist, but she handles them with aplomb:
Soldier : "What's a girl like you doing in a job like this?"
Anne Travers : "Well, when I was a little girl I thought I'd like to be a scientist, so I became a scientist."
SNAP! You go, Girl!
The Doctor, of course, treats her as the brilliant scientist she is.
Harry -
Very much a proto-Liz Shaw, is Anne Travers.
At the end, we get another peculiar ending, which seems to be a pattern in the Troughton era that I hadn't noticed before. Instead of a clean defeat of the Great Intelligence, it is merely foiled and allowed to escape. The Doctor had intended to reverse its plot and do the absorbing - his despair when the plan went awry was surprising. He genuinely went wild on everyone.
Sarah -
Interesting observation about the ending. That has happened a lot in the Second Doctor era, hasn’t it?
The Doctor’s reaction to his plan being thwarted was disconcerting, and will be one of the many things I remember from this story. I thought he was going to start banging heads together!
Harry -
Anyway, another story ends happily, but with the sense that the Doctor got by more on luck and happenstance than cleverness... or is that what this Doctor wants everyone to believe? Well, no time to mull it over, the TARDIS is already on its way to another adventure!
Sarah -
Onward!
Best Line: "Oh, I shouldn't think so for a moment." (The Doctor’s response to Victoria asking if it’s safe.)
Favorite Moment: Meeting the Brig for the first time!
Lasting Image: Yetis in the Underground!
9/10
Harry -
Best Line: "I expect you're wondering who the devil I am, eh?" Not really, Brig!
Favourite Moment: The "Colonel" sweeps into the story.
Lasting Image: Travers and Silverstein pulling faces at each other.
9/10
Our marathon continues with Story #42 - Fury From the Deep...
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