This story is one of the most maligned in the history of classic Who. At various points it has been openly mocked and casually dismissed.
The kind consensus in fan circles nowadays is that they were trying to do too much within the limitations of the BBC budgetary and technical restraints. The Romans was an experiment testing the boundaries of what the series could get away with in terms of humor. This was an experiment in how far they could take the story visually. The Romans was the more successful experiment.
This episode holds up decently.
The TARDIS gets interrupted from it's programmed flight and pulled down to the titular planet. The Doctor is flummoxed.
In the alien landscape a Zarbi appears from behind one of the crags. It emits a strange high-pitched squeal. Inside the ship, Vicki is the only one who can hear the keening wail. The Doctor decides that he'll try to power his way through the force that is holding them in place.
Another Zarbi arrives with ...something. The word pantomime gets tossed around a lot when the subject turns to Zarbi. Imagine that someone took a canoe, built a papier-mache ant around it and made a hole in the bottom of the ant canoe to stick the wearer's legs through. That's pretty much a Zarbi. The thing that is with them looks a bit like the bastard child of a centipede and an aardvark.
The centivark shoots a web at the TARDIS. Everything goes dead in the ship. Vicki is rendered unconscious.
Ian and the Doctor decide to explore in the hopes of finding the source of the resistance. Barbara stays behind to tend to the recovering Vicki.
Vicki has returned to her Dido outfit with the addition of a pair of leggings or tights . Probably after they tried to film her on a TARDIS bed without them.
The scene between her and Barbara is fun. Vicki is skeptical of this "aspirin" that Barbara is trying to get her to take. Barbara is amazed at the state of 25th century education and Vicki looks at Barbara as a little primitive. It's the sort of conversation that they never had with Susan. Possibly because the production team didn't want to go into the origins of the Doctor and anything that dug into Susan's past would take away from the Doctor's mystery.
Maureen O'Brien is her usual adorable self.
The Doctor pulls out some jackets with plumbing supplies glued on and actually convinces Ian that this unlikely device will keep them alive in the thin atmosphere outside the ship. I'm sure that they wanted more realistic space suits, but the budget was only able to supply them with rain jackets with glued on plumbing fixtures.
There is a question of how they will open the doors with the power off. The Doctor reluctantly admits to Ian that his ring is more than decorative. He uses it to operate a machine that opens the doors.
The Doctor discovers large traces of mica about the place. He asks Ian for something sharp to cut out a sample. Ian produces his gold pen which vanishes in the blink of an eye. The Doctor thinks that this is a conjuring trick at first, but soon comes to the conclusion that it is somehow linked to the force that keeps the ship from dematerializing.
Back at the ship, Barbara has an odd moment where her arm stretches out towards the exterior door. She shakes it off and goes back to check up on Vicki.
Barbara ominously tells Vicki that she feels odd. Almost as if her arm weren't a part of her.
Vicki and Barbara's conversation turns to the gold bracelet that Barbara is sporting. Barbara admits that it was a present from Nero spilling the beans that she and Ian did more than loaf around the villa during the last serial. Vicki is somewhat skeptical of Barbara and says that she will find out the truth from Ian.
Ian and the Doctor find a pool. Ian, assuming it to be water, starts to reach his hands inside. The Doctor stops him. He gets Ian to take his tie off and give it to the Doctor. The Doctor tests the water with Ian's Coal Hill School tie. It dissolves in the acid.
For some reason Ian is wearing his necktie as a belt instead of around his neck. I have no idea why. I distinctly remember him straightening his necktie in Flashpoint. I don't remember any tie related shenanigans in Vicki's intro story and he wore period dress throughout The Romans.
Anyway, the pool is probably formic acid. And if Them has taught me anything at all it has taught me that formic acid is related to ants. They move a short distance away and Ian thinks that he sees something move in the acid pool. The Doctor is dismissive of this and the pair move on.
Back at the TARDIS Barbara comes under some sort of assault. Her braceleted arm rises zombie-like towards the exterior door. The door opens on its own. There is some commotion that alerts Vicki. Barbara leaves the ship and walks in a trance state towards the acid pool. Vicki enters the main console room to find it in a minor state of disarray, the doors open and Barbara gone.
The Doctor and Ian find an ancient pyramid. The Doctor doesn't believe that this is the source of the interference and the two start to move on. They then here Vicki's screams for Barbara echo through the land. They decide to return to the ship.
En route to the TARDIS, Ian gets caught in a net trap. The Doctor leaves him to go check on the women.
The doors close on the ship and the sound of dematerialization begins.
The Doctor arrives just in time to see the TARDIS gone. Hartnell is great at portraying the loss and desperation that abandonment here means.
The exteriors were all shot through some sort of filter or gauze. It both brightened things and blurred them at the same time.
This is the fifth serial of the second season. The fifth serial of the first season was The Keys of Marinus. Both stories featured acid being mistaken for water. Make of that what you will.
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| Vicki hearing the Zarbi keening. |
Next up: The Zarbi
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