Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time! This time: a bottle episode, a creepy Susan, and a solution in felt-tip.
The first truly experimental story in Doctor Who is a bottle episode set completely within the TARDIS, with some strange and haunting concepts at play.
Narratively, the adventure is in shambles. Although The Edge of Destruction explores intriguing ideas on paper, its integration into a cohesive narrative is incredibly careless.
One of the biggest problems here is the plethora of ambitious sci-fi concepts and weird, unexplained phenomena that don't fully come alive with the resources put into the serial.
I don't find that all the dots connect very well here; it's almost as if writer David Whittaker had a conclusion ready and then just made up the road to get there while writing the scripts.
The sense of mystery putting these four individuals against each other is what fuels most of the early parts of this episode, before the characters understand that working together is the way to success.
The serial messes around with established characterization, and it is too early for that; we don't know the characters well enough for these character-breaking traits to have an effect.
I'd say this is where Carole Ann Ford's decline as a companion begins; she gets the least to do here and is mostly over-the-top annoying. She won't have another good story until The Sensorites.
Barbara and the Doctor going head-to-head against each other is the most satisfying aspect of this serial, as these scenes are well-performed by William Hartnell and Jacqueline Hill.
I like Hartnell's little monologue at the end of Part Two; it's beautifully shot and an early defining moment for this Doctor.
The pacing is pretty good, as the story keeps shifting all the time, almost too rapidly at times, and throws in way too many ideas at the same time.
The solution to the problem is so laughably bad that it is easily the worst solution to the weirdest villain in the series' history.
Review by Theo KallströmVIP 6BlockedParentSpoilers2022-03-10T08:43:22Z— updated 2024-04-11T19:52:24Z
:pray_tone2:61% = Okay!
Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time! This time: a bottle episode, a creepy Susan, and a solution in felt-tip.
The first truly experimental story in Doctor Who is a bottle episode set completely within the TARDIS, with some strange and haunting concepts at play.
Narratively, the adventure is in shambles. Although The Edge of Destruction explores intriguing ideas on paper, its integration into a cohesive narrative is incredibly careless.
One of the biggest problems here is the plethora of ambitious sci-fi concepts and weird, unexplained phenomena that don't fully come alive with the resources put into the serial.
I don't find that all the dots connect very well here; it's almost as if writer David Whittaker had a conclusion ready and then just made up the road to get there while writing the scripts.
The sense of mystery putting these four individuals against each other is what fuels most of the early parts of this episode, before the characters understand that working together is the way to success.
The serial messes around with established characterization, and it is too early for that; we don't know the characters well enough for these character-breaking traits to have an effect.
I'd say this is where Carole Ann Ford's decline as a companion begins; she gets the least to do here and is mostly over-the-top annoying. She won't have another good story until The Sensorites.
Barbara and the Doctor going head-to-head against each other is the most satisfying aspect of this serial, as these scenes are well-performed by William Hartnell and Jacqueline Hill.
I like Hartnell's little monologue at the end of Part Two; it's beautifully shot and an early defining moment for this Doctor.
The pacing is pretty good, as the story keeps shifting all the time, almost too rapidly at times, and throws in way too many ideas at the same time.
The solution to the problem is so laughably bad that it is easily the worst solution to the weirdest villain in the series' history.