Story Title: The Tenth Planet
Series: 4 Story No: 2 Episode Count: 4
Doctor: 1st Companions: Ben & Polly
Date(s) Watched: Thursday 2nd July 2009
The last hurrah for the First Doctor, actually as bad as some make out, it’s just a shame that Hartnell’s last appearance, during his reign that remains in the archives is Episode 2.
The story itself it’s rather good, if again nothing spectacular. Ben & Polly still prove to be likeable in this with Polly uttering several lines that end up being unintentionally funny, most notably the way she says “oh no” when one of the soldiers gets killed by a Cyberman. The American accents are again a bit all over the place (makes you wonder why they chose to get actors in to put on American accents when it wasn’t fully successful first time round with The Gunfighters).
General Cutler’s accent is spot on however (he was Canadian after all so would be able to nail the accent somewhat) & considering he was the dominant American character in the story you kind of forget about the other ropey accents in Episode 1. Robert Beatty plays Cutler very well & convincingly, showing a hard military man crack & loose the plot once he realises that his son has gone on a possible “suicide mission”.
Another character that I particularly liked in the story as well was Barclay, who looks wise reminded me a bit of Rolf Harris. His rather calm & level headed thinking was a great contrast to brash & pig headed Cutler. The accents of the people at Geneva sounded a bit put on but then again perhaps they wanted to make a point of
Mention also has to be given to the Cybermen themselves, at quick glance most would be dismissive of their rather “cheap” look & the sound of their voice probably would make a modern audience of today laugh at them rather than fear them. However the look itself is perhaps the creepiest of the lot, especially when the light sometimes catches the eyeballs behind the black cloth, even more so when those eye’s are looking at camera.
The sets themselves aren’t that spectacular although the South Pole outdoor sets are effective enough. The model of Mondas although simple, works & probably had a few of the audience members of 1966 wonder what was going on with this upside down representation of Earth.
One thing that has dated the story somewhat is it’s year setting, 1986, whereas even by 1976 the story looked dated, however that’s just the curse of the Sci-Fi show unfortunately, predicting the future when it comes to technology usually means it’s just going to look dated 5-10 years down the line & considering this story is 43 years old it’s even more evident, oh well.
Sadly the final episode is missing but thankfully the regeneration remains, sure later ones proved were more dramatic & better filmed, but this first one is still good, is rather poignant & is rather sad in some respects as after 29 stories the First Doctor has gone.
Overall Rating: 4/5 – A very good tale that does have a few production issues but the performances by Beatty & Dodimead, along with the introduction of the rather creepy Cybermen & the regeneration of the first Doctor lift the score of this story somewhat.
Series: 4 Story No: 2 Episode Count: 4
Doctor: 1st Companions: Ben & Polly
Date(s) Watched: Thursday 2nd July 2009
The last hurrah for the First Doctor, actually as bad as some make out, it’s just a shame that Hartnell’s last appearance, during his reign that remains in the archives is Episode 2.
The story itself it’s rather good, if again nothing spectacular. Ben & Polly still prove to be likeable in this with Polly uttering several lines that end up being unintentionally funny, most notably the way she says “oh no” when one of the soldiers gets killed by a Cyberman. The American accents are again a bit all over the place (makes you wonder why they chose to get actors in to put on American accents when it wasn’t fully successful first time round with The Gunfighters).
General Cutler’s accent is spot on however (he was Canadian after all so would be able to nail the accent somewhat) & considering he was the dominant American character in the story you kind of forget about the other ropey accents in Episode 1. Robert Beatty plays Cutler very well & convincingly, showing a hard military man crack & loose the plot once he realises that his son has gone on a possible “suicide mission”.
Another character that I particularly liked in the story as well was Barclay, who looks wise reminded me a bit of Rolf Harris. His rather calm & level headed thinking was a great contrast to brash & pig headed Cutler. The accents of the people at Geneva sounded a bit put on but then again perhaps they wanted to make a point of
Mention also has to be given to the Cybermen themselves, at quick glance most would be dismissive of their rather “cheap” look & the sound of their voice probably would make a modern audience of today laugh at them rather than fear them. However the look itself is perhaps the creepiest of the lot, especially when the light sometimes catches the eyeballs behind the black cloth, even more so when those eye’s are looking at camera.
The sets themselves aren’t that spectacular although the South Pole outdoor sets are effective enough. The model of Mondas although simple, works & probably had a few of the audience members of 1966 wonder what was going on with this upside down representation of Earth.
One thing that has dated the story somewhat is it’s year setting, 1986, whereas even by 1976 the story looked dated, however that’s just the curse of the Sci-Fi show unfortunately, predicting the future when it comes to technology usually means it’s just going to look dated 5-10 years down the line & considering this story is 43 years old it’s even more evident, oh well.
Sadly the final episode is missing but thankfully the regeneration remains, sure later ones proved were more dramatic & better filmed, but this first one is still good, is rather poignant & is rather sad in some respects as after 29 stories the First Doctor has gone.
Overall Rating: 4/5 – A very good tale that does have a few production issues but the performances by Beatty & Dodimead, along with the introduction of the rather creepy Cybermen & the regeneration of the first Doctor lift the score of this story somewhat.
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