#How Hartnell made that initial choice to be and do better not because he especially believed in Crozier but because he believed in himself

[saints-who-never-existed]

I've been chewing on this wonderful post for days now. It's taken me that long to figure out what I want to say about it and what I want to say actually concerns Crozier more than Fitzjames.

To be more specific, it's that final line concerning the two of them - "Fitzjames is not truly loved by the people he surrounds himself with in the same way Crozier is." - that's been rattling around in my head most of all. And I think it's been rattling around so consistently because I don't know that I believe it to be true.

I think Crozier shares many of the same flaws that Fitzjames has - that misplaced trust, that naivety, that misjudgement of character. And I don't believe, in the end, that he's truly loved by the people he surrounds himself with all that much more than Fitzjames is.

Now, that's not to say that Crozier is not loved and trusted by those around him... Blanky loves and trusts Crozier to the ends of the earth. Jopson is so devoted to him that'll he'll drag himself through agonies and hells both real and imagined just to get near to him. And Crozier has the love and staunch loyalty of good boys like Hartnell too.

But at a base functional level, the love that Crozier gets is no better than that which Fitzjames does, even if that love is truer and more plentiful, generally speaking.

It's still fleeting and it still doesn't make a difference in the end.

Crozier's abandonment to his fate is still proposed and discussed just like it was for Fitzjames but whereas in Fitzjames' case the idea is quashed immediately, in Crozier's it's actually followed through on.

Little protests in Crozier's favour, of course, but I think it's very telling, very damning even, that he speaks practically rather than personally as he does so. He mentions Crozier's leadership, his knowledge of the land and the Netsilik tongue but says nothing of the man's character.

Even staunchly loyal Little doesn't want to save Crozier because he truly loves him. He wants to save Crozier because he needs him and that's not the same thing at all.

In my opinion Dundy’s entire role in the narrative is to draw attention to Fitzjames being a poor judge of character, or rather, valuing and prioritizing a kind of relationship that would serve him in the Civilized World that falls apart as the men start to shed their ties to England to focus on survival. It’s interesting to me that historically Fitzjames handpicked the Erebus lieutenants— it seems a smart move for a voyage to a dangerous remote location to surround yourself with people you like and trust, so you’d expect that the people Fitzjames picked would remain loyal to him until the end. But that isn’t what happens. If you accept that Dundy was leading Little in the conversation where he first proposes leaving the sick behind (and Little does look at Dundy several times as though they’ve previously discussed this) Dundy was willing to leave Fitzjames behind to die when he was sick. Kinda cold given the length of their knowing each other and Fitzjames’ campaigning to get him his position. But it makes sense that a relationship built on mutual self-interest would crumble under the weight of individual survival needs.

I also keep thinking about Fitzjames suggesting Des Voeux as somebody they can trust during “Terror Camp Clear”. Des Voeux??? Really??? But he’s another one of the ones Fitzjames handpicked. There’s a naiveté to it, the assumption that the mutual self interest, this “I got you a job so now you’re loyal to me”, is the same as legitimate trust or friendship. It’s Fitzjames’ first “more than god loves them” at Franklin all over again, his misplaced belief that what will get them through this is the same thing that got them into this, the hierarchy and political connections between people. In the end, for all that he’s charming and politically successful, Fitzjames is not truly loved by the people he surrounds himself with in the same way Crozier is.

[douxreviews]

Doctor Who - ‘An Unearthly Child’ Review

(aka 100,000 B.C., The Tribe of Gum, The Stone Age, or The Paleolithic Age)

Two teachers follow a mysterious student into a junkyard, spawning multiple generations of sci-fi geeks.

Season 1, Serial A Starring William Hartnell as the Doctor With William Russell (Ian), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara) and Carole Ann Ford (Susan) Written by Anthony Coburn and C.E. Webber Directed by Waris Hussein Produced by Verity Lambert

Episodes and Broadcast Dates:

An Unearthly Child – 23 Nov 1963

The Cave Of Skulls – 30 Nov 1963

The Forest Of Fear – 7 Dec 1963

The Firemakers – 14 Dec 1963

Plot Summary

At the end of another day at London’s Coal Hill School, history teacher Barbara Wright and science teacher Ian Chesterton compare notes about an enigmatic student, Susan Foreman. Her knowledge of history and science surpasses their own, but is also awkwardly unaware of the ins-and-outs of contemporary life. They trail her to her given address, 76 Totters Lane, only to find a scrapyard wherein sits a rather incongruous Police Box emitting an eerie hum. They encounter Susan’s grandfather, who brusquely shoos them away. But when Susan’s voice is heard from inside, they push past him into the Police Box and find themselves in a vast futuristic chamber, much larger on the inside. The old man is furious at their intrusion. Susan explains that they are exiles from another world and another time, and the Police Box is their ship, the TARDIS. The old man is paranoid and irascible, certain that the teachers will expose their secret, and despite Susan’s panicked pleas he activates the TARDIS, leaving 60’s London behind.

The quartet find themselves in the Stone Age, and are soon abducted by a tribe of primitive humans. There is a power struggle for control of the tribe between Za, son of the late elder, and the outsider Kal, focused on the secret of making fire. When the old man announces he can make fire, they become pawns in the struggle. Along the way, Ian and Barbara introduce the tribe to concepts of mercy and helpfulness, that in ‘their tribe,’ the firemaker is the least powerful person, and that one tyrant is not as strong as a unified collective. This lesson is lost on the old man; when Za pursues them through the forest and is attacked by a wild beast, he is perfectly willing to kill the wounded man to help them escape. Ultimately they make fire for the tribe, Za kills Kal, and the travelers escape to the TARDIS.

It is made clear that Susan’s grandfather, who is known as the Doctor, cannot control the navigational systems of the TARDIS, and may never be able to return Ian and Barbara home. They arrive at their next destination and go out to explore. They do not notice the TARDIS’s radiation meter inching into the danger zone...

Analysis and Notes

-- Episode One’s viewership was quite low – possibly due to news coverage of President Kennedy’s assassination the day before, possibly due to a number of regional power cuts – so the BBC granted a virtually unprecedented re-broadcast immediately prior to Episode Two. More people saw the repeat broadcast than the initial one.

-- Episode One was a re-write and re-shoot of the un-broadcast pilot episode, which was beset by technical difficulties and featured an even harsher characterization of the Doctor.

--Most of the principle guest cast would appear in future serials: Derek Newark (Za) in Inferno, Althea Charleton (Hur) in The Time Meddler, Jeremy Young (Kal) in Mission to the Unknown, and Eileen Way (Old Woman) in The Creature from the Pit.

Okay, all you Smith-heads, Tennant worshipers and Capaldians (all three of you, myself included), listen up. The sci-fi institution you know and love originated over a half century ago, right here. Before the action figures, the magazines, the thousands of fansites, the DVD’s, the convention circuit, the minisodes, and all the flood of BBC Enterprises swag, there was An Unearthly Child. And in some cases, it looks and feels very much like the show you’re watching now; there’s a big blue (well, dark gray) box called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, and it makes the same wheezy noise as it takes off and lands. There’s a mysterious central character called the Doctor and a handful of travelling companions. But there are also enormous differences.

In the current series, the TARDIS can land anywhere it wants to. But initially the central concept of the Classic Era was the TARDIS’s unreliability. This meant that when the Doctor takes off with Barbara and Ian on board at the end of episode one, there’s virtually no chance of getting them home again. In future serials where the Doctor and crew need to get to a specific place, they have to hitch a ride.

The early days of the show were a sharp contrast from the ethos displayed in the upcoming Series Nine catchphrase, “I’m the Doctor. I save people.” In most cases, they landed in a certain place or time, got separated from the TARDIS, and spent the rest of the series more focused on Not Dying and/or Not Changing History than they were about liberating oppressed humanoids or saving Earth from alien invasion. And especially in this opening serial, the only person the Doctor feels obliged to save is himself.

Having never been companions by choice, Barbara and Ian’s primary goal throughout their time on the TARDIS was to get home again. Even when they weren’t so much traveling companions as kidnapping victims, this meant getting back to the TARDIS whenever they were separated from it, and keeping the Doctor – their kidnapper – safe at all times since he was the only person who could operate it. Ultimately they do get home again, but end up using a slightly more reliable Dalek time capsule to do it, and we never quite learn how they explain their two-year absence to the Coal Hill headmaster.

And we have to assume they left no significant others behind. Because if there’s one consistent theme amongst the TARDIS’s early classic era companions, it’s that they have no backstories or families or home life that’s disrupted when they meet the Doctor. They’re orphans, bachelors, and free agents. No room for outside domestic drama on the TARDIS.

As for the actual story:

I can’t help but fall in step with the Received Wisdom that the first episode is classic and the remaining three are comparatively mediocre. That said, the Stone Age episodes are very noteworthy. The initial concept for the series was that science fiction and historical stories would balance each other – thus the need for a history teacher and a science teacher. The historical stories would follow the format established here; the TARDIS crew gets separated from the ship, and after a few cycles of capture-escape-recapture where they encounter historical figures or crucial historical events, manage to escape to the TARDIS without getting killed or dramatically changing history.

And the Doctor couldn’t be further removed from how we come to know him now. Selfish, paranoid, and bad-tempered, over-protective of Susan, a kidnapper, a would-be murderer, a refugee rather than a traveler, he’s a quintessential anti-hero, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was the only one who could pilot the TARDIS, odds are they’d boot him out. It’s his dealing with Barbara and Ian that over time gives him a moral compass, either making him a heroic figure, or re-making him one after whatever as-yet-undetermined incident caused him to flee.

The Stone Age tribe is surprisingly multi-dimensional. They’re not ignorant, just uneducated. The oldest among them are fearful of new technology (i.e. fire). The savage conditions in which they live, where death lurks around every corner, render concepts like tenderness, kindness, and democracy as luxuries. You may just have to grit your teeth as the social liberalism is delivered with a side of colonialism; the well-dressed white bourgeois travelers drop into the jungle like the Galactic Peace Corps to teach the dirty savages how to live better. Also a dash of sexism as the girl – named, appropriately enough, Hur – exists as the prize to be awarded to either Kal or Za.

It’s evident that the BBC wanted this program to succeed. Even though they put the show in the young and relatively inexperienced hands of producer Verity Lambert and director Waris Hussein, possibly so they could be scapegoats for the program’s potential failure, they allowed the pilot episode to be re-tooled and re-filmed, and they re-broadcast Episode One immediately prior to Episode Two.

As this is the very first serial, it’s worthy to note which concepts have stayed etched in granite over a half-century and which have been more malleable (if not rejected entirely):

The Doctor’s Name – Susan only refers to him as “Grandfather.” Ian recalls, before they meet, that Susan’s grandfather is “a Doctor or something.” Since the junkyard’s front door reads I.M. FOREMAN, SCRAP MERCHANT, and Susan’s given surname is Foreman, he calls him “Dr. Foreman” in episode two, to which the old man replies, “Huh? Doctor Who? What is he talking about?” strongly suggesting that “Foreman” was never their name. Does one require a PhD to run a junkyard? Or are they squatters, with Susan adopting the name on the door? If so, whatever happened to I.M. Foreman? He never explicitly instructs Ian or Barbara as to how he wishes to be addressed, and basically adopts the title “The Doctor” by default.

The TARDIS – Susan claims to have made up the name of the TARDIS as an acronym for Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space, as if this TARDIS was the only one in existence. For most of the first season, they refer to the TARDIS simply as “The Ship.” In episode two, the Doctor notes that the external appearance of the ship is supposed to blend in with its surroundings (though the term “Chameleon Circuit” would not be coined for over a decade), suggesting this is the first time it has failed; with rare exceptions, it would never function again. And the most pivotal concept about the TARDIS is that the Doctor cannot navigate it properly. Either he never learned, or he forgot, or the mechanism is faulty; it’s never explicitly stated, but once they leave London 1963, there’s no guarantee they’ll ever get back.

Their Origins – No Time Lords, no Gallifrey, these terms don’t appear for years to come. The details they give in the first episode are sketchy. They’re exiles, wanderers in time, cut off from their own planet. No mention is ever given of Susan’s parents (i.e. the Doctor’s offspring, presumably). They’re hiding on Earth, and have lived incognito for several months; from what and why are never stated.

Been Here Before – Barbara lends Susan a very thick book about the French Revolution, which Susan reads in a split second and remarks, “That’s not how it happened!” Though no mention of a prior visit was ever made later in Season One when they land in Robespierre’s post-revolutionary Paris. The gift of superhuman speed-reading appears again in the New Series’ reboot, Rose.

In Summation

You could be forgiven if you only watch the first episode, but what an episode it is! It’s as noteworthy and epoch-shifting a debut as the Beatles’ Please Please Me eight months earlier (or their follow-up, With The Beatles, issued the day before). Yet despite creator Sydney Newman’s directive of “No Bug Eyed Monsters!”, the program’s watershed moment was yet to come, and British popular culture would never be the same.

Rating: 3 out of 4 epoch-shifting moments in British pop culture.

John Geoffrion balances a career in hospital fundraising with semi-pro theatre gigs, and watches way too much Doctor Who and Britcoms in between. He'll create an author page after he puts up a few more reviews.

[flynnspeaks]

Flynn Marathons Doctor Who, Part III

(for anyone needing caught up--I’m doing a watch of Doctor Who from the very beginning of the show, bingewatching it by episode instead of by serial (which I find to be closer to the original spirit of the episodes, albeit still nothing like it at all), and then doing a writeup roughly every three serials or so)

Starting off Season 2 (which is, for the record, one of my all-time favorite seasons of the show):

Planet of Giants: Such an odd duck, isn’t it? I don’t think in the entire first block of the show there’s an episode that’s so “well this is nothing like the rest of the show” as this one is, which is ironic given this was the first premise for an episode attempted for the show. That being said, it’s really rather charming, essentially being “Doctor Who intrudes on an episode of the Avengers” before that kind of intrusion became standard, the effects work surprisingly well, and losing the fourth episode does wonders for the pacing. I’m in the minority that I don’t care for the “Barbara gets poisoned with the insecticide” plotline, but Hill sells it amazingly, and the scenes between her and Hartnell are sublime as always.

(random little notes: the way they frame the exposition to be simultaneously told by the Doctor to Barbara and by Susan to Ian via crosscutting is remarkably sophisticated. I never got the chance when I was discussing The Sensorites to comment on how good the direction was, and lo and behold, Mervyn Pinfield directed both serials (or at least, the episodes in question that made me notice the direction). Also, it’s still so goddamn weird to see Alan Tilvern in these episodes, because in my mind he will always be R.K. Maroon from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)

The Dalek Invasion of Earth: Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh this one always makes me giddy. By miles the best Hartnell Dalek story (which, admittedly, isn’t saying a whole lot), and for my money the first bona-fide classic the series produces after its first episode. This and The Rescue mark a real turning point for the show, and the next run of episodes really cement the Lambert era as one of my all-time favorites in the series.

So, the episode itself. One of the things that really stuck out to me on this watch was, despite being really poorly structured in comparison to The Daleks it paces so much better. This is I think partly because Nation finds a lot more to do with his premise here than he did last time, but mostly because The Daleks only had the Thaals to interact with as characters, where here we have a really rock solid supporting cast (our first since “The Aztecs”, though “Reign” at least had Lamaitre), with Tyler, Jenny, and Dortmun all being good, engaging characters, and even smaller parts like Ashton or Craddock given a lot of color from their actors (David is a bit of a wet fish, mostly due to his role as generic love interest. Still, it’s hard not to think about how improved the serial would be if his actor switched places with Tyler). The episodes are also littered with side characters that enliven the piece and give a great picture of the larger world--Ian’s excursion with Larry and Wells, with Larry discovering his brother was turned into a Roboman, or Barbara and Jenny coming across the two old women who sell them out to the Daleks in exchange for food. Yeah, in the midst of that we also get the Slither and the awful padding of Episode 5, but man, isn’t it great that for once a six-parter only has one episode of bad padding?

This is also one of the first episodes we’ve gotten in a while where it genuinely feels like each companion has something interesting to do--though in the end its still Barbara that gets the best showcase. I love her interactions with Jenny, and the whole arc with her essentially inspiring Jenny from callous hopelessness into believing she can actually make a difference is lovely. Especially given that the change comes in the form of Barbara mowing down Daleks in a truck. But even Ian gets some great moments, which is rare (”get new orders” is one of my favorite lines in the serial). And of course this is a great showcase for Hartnell, who here becomes the Doctor we know and love. His initial spar with the Dalek is delightful, as is his figuring out the prison key with Ian (“we shall have to ‘Boyle’ this down, now, shan’t we?”). This is where Hartnell enters the ‘loveable grandfather’ stage of his performance, and it’s absolutely delightful.

And then, of course, there’s Susan. So, I’m staking a claim here--I actually think this is an incredibly well-written companion departure that’s handled very gracefully, and not for nothing does it become the model for a lot of future companion departures (most notably The Green Death). Having said that, I do have to hedge against myself a little bit--as well-written as it is, Susan’s departure is incredibly problematic. Given that her arc through the episode is centered around her own maturity and finding her place in the world, the resolution being essentially that the Doctor gives her away and she gets married off is just yucky and outmoded even for 1964.

And I want to be clear, it’s not the quickness of the romance that makes this an issue--a lot of people complain that she’s just randomly thrown off with the first guy she shows an attraction to, and that’s not what I think is the problem. For what it is, the David/Susan relationship is actually incredibly well-done, with the both of them being able to bond in a real, human way, and one that’s intensified by the hardships they endure together. But it wouldn’t matter if it was rushed or if David was a plot arc that had been building 5 serials ago--the idea that for Susan to mature and leave the Doctor she has to get married is awwwwwful, and displays a reductive and sexist view of gender roles that a lot more people should pillory Nation for (worse that, as I said, this forms the basis of a lot of future companion departures, which essentially means that when they don’t have a good idea on how to get rid of a companion, they’ll marry them off (Leela and Peri are the worst offenders here)).

All that said...I do think you can create redemptive readings that hedge against the ickiness, and a large part of that is how much the episode focuses on Susan and builds her interiority. The episode continually stresses Susan’s desire to belong somewhere, and we see often how much the idea of staying with David and rebuilding the Earth appeals to her--especially by the end where she desperately wants to stay, but crucially feels she can’t abandon her grandfather. That’s the crucial thing about her departure, which is that she actually does want to go off somewhere on her own, but doesn’t feel she can because of a fealty to the Doctor. This is why he ends up pushing her out--he knows simultaneously that she won’t leave him by choice and that leaving him is really the best thing for her--that he’s essentially holding her back,

So he makes the choice any good parent or teacher does, and essentially pushes her out of the nest. This is what makes the actual departure so effective for me--the Doctor does not want to actually leave Susan, but feels he must for her own growth (”your future lies with David, and not with a silly old buffer like me”) It’s exceedingly problematic that marriage is treated as such a necessary part of that growth, but all the same it’s rare that a companion departure be treated with this much focus on the wants and needs of the companion herself, and I think that focus makes the episode really sing in the end.

(oh, and also the main plot is that the Daleks want to carve out the earth and drive it around as a spaceship. How can I not love it?)

The Rescue: Absolutely delightful. Just as the previous serial was the model for future companion departures, this becomes the model for future companion intros, and for good reason. This one’s great for most of the reasons people say it is, so I don’t have a lot to add, except to say that the Vicki/Ian/Barbara trio might be my all-time favorite TARDIS team, and Vicki’s quiet little “oh, I’d like to, yes, if you’ll have me” when Barbara asks her to join them is heartbreakingly sweet. If I was to pick a random Hartnell episode to show to someone who’s never seen the era before, it’d be this one without a doubt.

(also, I love the Doctor’s little monologue to himself...”I wonder if I was to tell Ian [landing on Dido] was deliberate, whether he’d believe me or not...oh no, of course, I was asleep! Ohhh, pity.”)