Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s) by Robert Shearman, Toby Hadoke Read Free Book Online Page A

episodes we watched, and I knew that eventually I’d come across one that I didn’t much like. I just didn’t anticipate it happening quite so soon.
    The problem, really, is with the bloody Thals, isn’t it? Terry Nation perhaps tries too hard to characterise them too quickly, giving them all different personalities – here’s the cynical one (Ganatus), here’s the one who pontificates a lot (Temmosus), here’s the annoying one who’s a bit dim and a bit humourless and who can’t act very well (Dyoni) – and the overall effect smacks of too much effort. The problem is that they’re not very interesting; Nation’s attempts to give them moments of banter are woeful, because the rest of the dialogue they have to utter is so terribly stilted. It isn’t helped, by the way, that Susan keeps on talking of the Thals with all the dreamy, drippy enthusiasm of a schoolgirl with a crush on the latest boy band. It’s nauseating.
    Positive. Must try for the positive.
    But – and here comes the positive, can you feel it? – maybe that’s all for the best. Because the very vague emptiness of the Thals only throws the Daleks into sharp relief. They emerge now as the bad guys, of course, but they’re all the better for it – they’re sly and scheming and cunning. You don’t like the Thals. Who’d want to like the Thals? Temmosus talks of how their Thal ancestors were warriors, and now they’re farmers. Offer any child the choice between rooting for a farmer, or for your actual reconstructed warrior – preferably in a metal casing and with a grating voice and a gun that makes the screen go negative – and who do you think they’ll pick?
    As characters, the Thals are failures. And by being failures – by keeping the goodies blandly simple and positively tedious – every time they’re on the screen, you’re left hankering for another scene featuring the Daleks instead. I guarantee that if you were ambivalent about the Daleks at the end of last week’s episode, you’ll have been converted to their side after sitting through a discussion from Alan Wheatley (as Temmosus) about the causal effect of random events. The boring sod.
    I’m not saying that the reason children went crazy for the Daleks – and the reason why the production team were taken by surprise and forced to commission a new story featuring the Daleks for the following Christmas, why Doctor Who suddenly was given its first hit and why its longevity was assured – was all because Virginia Wetherell’s performance as a lisping Thal girl makes you want to exterminate everyone in sight. But it can be a contributory factor, can’t it? Doctor Who has done something unexpected – it’s produced a villain that can be more popular and loveable than its hero. That little grey area of morality that the show has been exploring has, in a trice, become all the more ambiguous – and the programme is all the richer for it.
    T: Crikey, Shearman, I thought I might have to encourage you later on, maybe through the likes of The Space Museum episode four or Underworld episode two... but you’re flagging after only seven episodes?!! Where is your backbone? If it were down to the likes of you, Dalekmania would have lasted a fortnight, maximum. We’ve got 40-odd years to get through, man, get a hold on yourself!
    Let’s start with the episode title: “The Escape”. Terry Nation hasn’t quite got the same flair for naming scripts as Anthony Coburn, has he? In fact, watching this has really put into perspective just how strong Coburn’s four-part script was. The only dialogue that sticks out here is the memorably quaint – “Yes, I was rather clumsy” says Alydon, as if he’s just spilled the Pimms on the cucumber sandwiches. Much of the remainder of the Thal-speak is, as you say, pretty rotten – it’s mannered 60s fare, much as could be found in any dated series from long ago.
    And yet, this is where Doctor Who becomes different from anything on TV –