1.13: The Web Planet
In which all the guest stars are ants, butterflies and slugs, and the production’s reach exceeds its grasp.
Broadcast: February-March 1965
Watched: July 2019
1. The Web Planet
The fact there are suddenly giant f%&$ing ants everywhere is mental. But the attempt to create an alien world in a small studio is quite impressive in its way – the lens flare, the crystal pyramid, the trick with the tie, etc.
The chittering is annoying. No wonder Vicki needs a lie down. Barbara is impressively game for acting like she can’t resist following the bracelet out the door. (The call back to the fact the regulars lost each other in the last story is an unexpected touch.)
Can’t help but notice how much happier the Doctor is now he’s ditched his damp rag of a granddaughter. He’s always giggling.
Love the way Ian says of his pen “It just disappeared!” when it didn’t, you can see it jerked away on a string
Barbara about to fall in some acid, Ian eaten by some unconvincing netting, the TARDIS vanishing... I think this is the first cliffhanger with multiple angles isn’t it? Oddly reminiscent of The Pandorica Opens.
Which is a comparison you won’t hear very often.
2. The Zarbi
I like that the TARDIS is missing for all of five minutes, and that it turns out someone’s just nicked it. The model shot of it moving is kind of lovely, as is Vicki’s “pretending she’s about to fall over” work. Interesting she doesn’t scream when she sees a Zarbi. Susan would definitely have screamed.
All the alien work building is great. Interesting the Doctor has been here before. Although Ian asking “What galaxy is that in?” as if he’s been studying galaxies and the answer will be meaningful is odd. [As it turned out this is William Russell prompting Hartnell to finish is line.]
Oh, spoke too soon, Vicki screamed. The Zarbi are just less scary on television than they are in person.
I know it’s not a new observation but the ambition of this one is *mental*. Dancing butterflies vs ants that don’t talk, no human characters, on an alien planet. “Yeah we can definitely do that in a studio! It is 1965 after all.”
“NEXT WEEK... ESCAPE TO DANGER” is a brilliant cliffhanger, though it’d be better if it was “ESCAPE... TO DANGER!!”
3. Escape To Danger
“It’s unbelievable!” Well, yes.
Remarkably unclear what danger they have escaped to, what they have escaped, or indeed who is escaping.
“If only Barbara were here, we could go.” Ian sums up the entire first two years of Doctor Who in one line.
The flying effects are surprisingly impressive.
I had somehow forgotten that the Menoptera were *space* butterflies.
Ian is “very good at this sort of thing”, the Doctor says – he means “being in a Doctor Who story”, doesn’t he?
4. Crater of Needles
Definitely the weirdest episode so far. Very possibly the weirdest episode ever. The point where the Optera arrive, and they’re people hopping about in sleeping bags as if they’re giant slugs is weird enough (and the lead one clearly inspired Laurence Rickard’s cavemen voice in Horrible Histories and Ghosts). Then there’s the bit where Barbara and a giant butterfly hold a giant woodlouse in the air and shake it, and the entirely incomprehensible battle sequence.
Still the cliffhanger makes more sense than the last one which is pretty much “Quick, in this cave, whoops the ground’s given way”.
It’s sort of amazing that they filmed this and put it on BBC1.
Ha, I’d entirely forgotten that one of the Menoptera was Martin Jarvis. Dressed as a butterfly.
5. Invasion
The attempt to give the Menoptera a culture and religion is quite brave. The attempt to get pathos out of a slug sacrificing itself to block a hole in a wall is even braver. The cliffhanger, with the Doctor and Vicki covered in webbing, is incredibly creepy. Vicki keeping a Zarbi as a pet is amusing.
Er. that’s it.
[Two years later, I thought I had another clever point: that this and the first part of Invasion of the Dinosaurs, whose first episode hid the nature of the threat by using the title of Invasion, must be the only two episodes broadcast under identical titles. Except the latter is broadcast as Invasion, Part One, so I was wrong. Dammit.]
6. The Centre
WTF was all that about, then? Honestly. Couldn’t follow that at all, it’s all absolutely baffling. Don’t understand why the Animus isn’t affected by the weapon until suddenly it is. Don’t understand why singing “Zarbi!” defeated the Zarbi. Or anything else really.
I kind of like the way Hartnell looks physically defeated for much of the first half of this one – don’t think we’ve seen that before. Also the fact they do a five minute “everyone lives happily ever after” ending, except it’s all people dressed as bugs dancing is kind of funny.
Anyway, that one was like being on drugs.
RTD should definitely do a sequel. I have a vague recollection that, at one point, had the mid-1990s "Who" got taken up, the plan was to remake "significant" stories, which would have included this one. That would have been quite something.