"The Edge of Destruction"

All but the Doctor wake, and they’re acting strangely with memory lapses and almost drunken behavior. The Doctor has a bad cut on his head, to which Susan and Barbara are tending. Right away there’s this unsettling atmosphere where one is not sure what is happening, which I think is successful. The TARDIS doors open on their own, which Susan says is impossible, they close when Ian tries to walk toward them. Susan also says the ship can’t have crashed, as that’s impossible. I guess the TARDIS hasn’t been shown in physical flight before, and based on what we’ve seen on screen so far, that adds up with its disappearing and reappearing behavior. I like the ointment bandage that they put on the Doctor’s head with the colors that go away when the wound is healed. It’s a small thing, but it’s cool to see some advanced technology in use. Susan tries the TARDIS controls, but stops, screams, and collapses. The Doctor wakes, complains of pain from being hit on the neck, Ian takes Susan to a room to lie down. Ian gets water, but when he returns he finds Susan, brandishing scissors. She proceeds to lunge at him, but instead starts stabbing the recliner she’s in and collapses again. Carole Ann Ford is chewing some major scenery in this episode, but in a way that works for the story, adding to the unsettling nature of it. Ian, Barbara, and the Doctor continue to discuss the situation, speculate if something got in the ship, or if there’s perhaps a mechanical fault. Ian and the Doctor check the fault locator. Barbara tends to Susan, who insists there’s nothing wrong with her, threatens Barbara with the scissors, and then suggests if something got in the ship that Ian and Barbara are trying to hide it from her, and perhaps it’s inside one of them. The paranoia and suspicion is building the tension nicely.

The Doctor speculates that the fault must be outside the ship, so he goes to turn on the scanner, which makes Susan shout that he must not do so. Apparently that was the control that made her go unconscious and have the same neck pain as the Doctor, something that doesn’t seem to have happened to Ian and Barbara, which the Doctor and Susan find suspicious. The Doctor gets the scanner working, and it shows a variety of images, like maybe England, and then the planet Quinnis, places the TARDIS has been before. However, that doesn’t match the bright light they see when the doors open. They really are getting the most they can out of this TARDIS control room set, using the doors, the console, and the scanner in so many unusual ways, which again adds to the feeling of the story. I’ve mentioned things like the feel and the atmosphere a lot in this review so far, but that’s the majority of what makes this episode work, rather hard to define well in words. The Doctor accuses Ian and Barbara of sabotage, saying they’re trying to hold him hostage unless he can take them back home. Barbara rips him a new one, saying how he would have died in the Cave of Skulls if it wasn’t for them, and everything with the Daleks because of the Doctor’s own trickery.

“Accuse us? You ought to go down on your hands and knees and thank us! But gratitude’s the last thing you’ll ever have, or any sort of common sense either!” This is absolutely one of Barbara’s best moments, the point where she decides she’s done taking the Doctor’s abuse, and lets out all the frustrations that have been boiling within her from the very beginning of the show. The Doctor completely has it coming which makes it so very satisfying. It’s a shame this moment is directly followed by Barbara screaming because of all the clocks in the room breaking, very unfortunate. The Doctor very quickly manages to return to the console room (not sure exactly when he left) with nightcaps for all of them, saying it’s to help everyone get some rest. It’s actually to allow him to go to the controls on his own without interruption, when a pair of hands reaches for his neck. Such a bizarre episode of Doctor Who, and I really enjoy it. I imagine it’s almost incomprehensible to the first time viewer, but it rather makes sense if you know what’s happening from having seen the second part, and it’s cool to see that the hints were there all along.

"The Brink of Disaster"

It’s pretty funny that the first and second episode are the same title run through a thesaurus. The hands belong to Ian, and the Doctor thinks he’s caught him, and by extension Barbara, red-handed. Ian didn’t do very much until he fainted, which means Barbara is unsure exactly how that incriminates Ian. She tries to make Susan see some reason, which makes the Doctor just believe she’s trying to turn Susan against him. There’s threats of throwing them off the ship, despite Ian saying he was just trying to get the Doctor away from the controls to protect him, and it’s not until the Doctor sees the fault locator is reading that everything is at fault, that he realizes this couldn’t be his Earth companions doing this. That was many sentences of summary, but all of those things bring the tension very high, you really think the Doctor is going to throw them off wherever they are, it’s actually a little frightening to see. The Doctor believes there’s some powerful force at work, and that they are on “the brink of destruction.” You were so close to saying the title. The next big part of the episode is them all trying to work together to figure out the situation, and Barbara starts to realize that the strange things the ship has been doing must have been hints and warnings. Breaking the clocks to make them aware of time, and then returning it later when it’s running out. Ian and the Doctor are having a tough time believing the ship can think for itself, but realize it must be just in a way that a machine would think.

The third story of Doctor Who, and we already have the reveal that the TARDIS is alive, at least in some way, an idea that has been done time and time again over the course of the series to varying degrees. Very cool that it has lasted this long. There’s a bit of “let’s not tell the ladies the danger we’re in or how little time there is” between the Doctor and Ian, which is some of that period sexism leaking into the story, but it’s relatively minor, and I think rather countered by Barbara, a woman, being the one who’s figuring out what’s happening. So they were made aware of time, their attention was turned to the scanner, which was showing the places the TARDIS had last been, now it’s showing the creation of a galaxy and an explosion, the big bang (a little of the classic sci-fi TV galaxy vs universe mixup I’ve seen a few times before), the fault locator telling them that everything will go boom if they don’t fix it, and all but one panel of the console is electrified, which has narrowed everything down for them. The Doctor figures out that the fast return switch, designed to take the TARDIS to its previous destination is stuck, as if his finger never left it, which is taking them back into the beginning of the universe, which will destroy them all. He fixes it, and it’s all good.

A little padded when he explains how a stuck switch works with a flashlight, but I think story-wise it all comes together very nicely. The one thing I’ve never understood with this story, is how this is making them all act the way they were, like Susan losing her mind with the scissors, or the memory loss, any of that. If it’s part of the TARDIS’s warning, that’s very counterproductive, making the occupants unable to think clearly. We end with a very touching moment where the Doctor apologizes for the way he’s treated Barbara, how he’s misjudged her and Ian. “As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves,” is a good line, and that moment is kind of the culmination of the first Doctor’s loose character arc up to this point of learning that he needs to trust and has learned to respect his human companions. They all go outside and see a huge humanoid footprint in some snow. This is a good story of Doctor Who. It’s always good when Doctor Who tries to be a bit weird and unusual, and this is probably the earliest example. Sure, it’s a bottle episode because they went over budget with the first two stories, but they made it work. It was compelling, interesting, and actually progressed the characters, especially the Doctor and Barbara. Again, a 3.5/5 Stars, I feel like I find something new to like about it each time I watch it.