Where In the TARDIS Nearly Blows Up

Are we supposed to like the First Doctor? I ask that sincerely knowing full well that in this character’s introductory season of Doctor WhoThe longest running sci-fi franchise (at least in terms of sheer seasons), Doctor Who has seen cancelations, relaunches, and reboots, but the core of the series remains the same: a madman in a box traveling through time and space. the writers never even thought about replacing the actor, William Hartnell, or that in doing so they would create a wild and weird mythology that would see the main character take on new faces and new personas as they switched from actor to actor. But here, in this first season, we are stuck with an old man as the Doctor, and I don’t know if the writers even liked the character, let alone wanted us to like him.

This is the third story of three for the original series, as we’re going in order (best as we can, since many stories coming up are missing), and so far we’ve seen the First Doctor act like a petulant old man over and over again. He kidnaps people, he lies, he mistrusts everyone, and he acts solely in his own self interest. There have been times (like in “The Daleks”) where the Doctor has had a chance to help others and be a force for good, but all he’s wanted to do is get back on his ship and get as far away from the people as possible. This isn’t a heroic character, he’s a grumpy old man who just wants to continue his holiday.

I suppose the writers are at least consistent in this characterization. He’s at his most petulant, and most annoying, so far in this third story, “The Edge of Destruction”, but that doesn’t make him someone I want to watch. And with everyone else in this story screeching, fainting, and acting weird themselves, I can’t say I had much to actually latch onto for this story in the slightest. I hated everyone in this story and when the Doctor said, “I think we’re on the brink of total annihilation”, I prayed for it to happen even though I know there’s another 60 years worth of stories to come. Suffice it to say, Hartnell is a long way off from being a Doctor I enjoy.

The story picks up from the very end of “The Daleks”, where the crew of the TARDIS – the Doctor, Susan, Ian, and Barbara – were flying off from Skaro when, suddenly, their shift is rocked and damaged and everyone is knocked out. As they slowly come to they feel strange, hardly acting like themselves. It’s like everyone is operating in a daze, unable to focus, unable to work together as a team. Something has clearly gone horribly wrong, but it’s impossible to say what.

Suspecting that Ian and Barbara have somehow sabotaged the ship, the Doctor drugs their tea, forcing them to pass out again. He, meanwhile, tried to figure out the problem but can’t seem to determine the issue. Barbara, meanwhile, slowly wakes up and starts noticing things, like the TARDIS acting funny, and time missing on the various clocks. Her clues help the Doctor, in turn, to piece things together, and he soon discovers that his “Fast Return” switch has gotten stuck, pushing them further and further backwards in time towards the beginning of everything. Popping the switch back out fixes the problem, and the ship is saved, all thanks to the Doctor and Barbara working together.

This story, to be blunt, is really dumb. The first issue I have with it is the resolution, a switch being stuck that was sending them hurtling backwards through time. The Doctor is supposed to understand his ship as, at this point, our assumption is that he built it (we know from later continuity that isn’t the case, but we’re not at that point yet). He seems utterly flabbergasted that a switch could even get stuck, especially one marked “Fast Return”, so he’s unable to come up with the simple solution that fixes things. So that makes him look like an idiot, and it also is annoying that the solution is something so simple after two episodes worth of build up.

But that build up also is a problem. The show gives us all these hints, and has the characters discuss back and forth around things over and over again. I can’t tell if the writers were expecting the audience to be able to figure out the solution before the characters could, or no, but I certainly didn’t. In fact, the whole set of clues felt so obtuse that I just started tuning out and letting the episode wash over me. “They’ll be fine. I’m sure whatever technobabble solution they figure out will save the day.” And I was right, more or less.

I think, again, it’s a matter of pacing. Watching the characters spend endless minutes talking back and forth around a problem that seems weird and obtuse isn’t thrilling television. The fact that the solution is so simple afterwards doesn’t help, but it certainly would have worked better if we didn’t spend two episodes on the problem with everyone giving long, Shakespearean speeches about it before finally getting on with the matter at hand. Everything is so drawn out and the problem is so simple that it feels so stupid once everything is revealed.

It also causes a major continuity issue as well. The Doctor said he couldn’t take everyone back home in the first story, “An Unearthly Child”, because he didn’t know where they were so he couldn’t just simply push a button and send them home. Except now we see he has a “Fast Return” button which does just that (assuming it doesn’t get stuck), so that is, in fact, a complete lie. It shows that the writers didn’t even know what they were doing and didn’t have a firm grasp on the TARDIS, or the Doctor, before launching into these stories, as they’re already contradicting themselves just three stories in.

But the biggest issue, really, is the Doctor. I really just hate this character. Ian and Barbara are fine, and while I think Susan is largely useless she very rarely acts as a hindrance to the storytelling. More often than not, though, the Doctor is the cause of their problems, not the solution, and it’s Ian and Barbara that have to figure things out so this senile old man can then save the day for them. Right now the series would honestly be better without the title character, which isn’t a spot you want your show to be in. I keep hoping that the writers will get a grip on the character and make him a compelling character to watch, but that hasn’t happened yet and I’m starting to worry it never will.

Like the previous two stories, “The Edge of Destruction” is something you watch simply so you can see how the early days of Doctor Who evolved. As an adventure in its own right it’s threadbare at best, and its resolution is more insulting than interesting. Having seen it for myself I don’t see how or why I’d ever want to go back to it. This isn’t the kind of Doctor Who I enjoy, in large part because this isn’t a Doctor I enjoy, and it really feels like he’s dragging the whole operation down.