Planet of Giants (Episode 1)

The one where the TARDIS crew is reduced to the size of "roughly an inch"...

Doctor Who is back! After seven long weeks between seasons (how did fans manage to wait that long back in the 1960s?!), the new series kicks off with Planet of Giants, which is something of a spoiler in itself. It takes the Doctor and friends more than 10 minutes to work out what the viewer's known since the beginning!

It seems to be business as usual aboard the TARDIS, with the Doctor busying himself around the console in his new cape (another one!) and ordering Susan to check the fault locator. She notices an amber alert on the instrument, which reads QR18 A14D, which in English means: "Bloody hell, the doors have opened in flight!"

We're treated to another rendition of the TARDIS's emergency foghorn (I can't wait until it's been upgraded to one of those lovely Cloister Bells) and some frantic switch-flicking from the Doctor, who tells the others to push the doors back shut. It takes him a while to recover from this catastrophe, failing to explain to Ian and Barbara along the way quite why this was such a bad thing to happen. However, as soon as the Doctor ascertains that all is well again, his first thought is to apologise to Barbara. "I always forget the niceties under pressure," he says to her. A lovely little moment between the two. It's interesting that the Doctor doesn't bother to apologise to Ian. Barbara is his priority.

What with this and the smashing scanner screen, it's starting to feel very like The Edge of Destruction all over again, and the Doctor would be well-advised to check that sticky Fast Return Switch, but instead our heroes venture outside to explore. After all, that's what Doctor Who's all about. So soon after his concern for Barbara's feelings, it's doubly interesting that the Doctor suggests they split up and pairs himself with Barbara. Remember how pleased he was to see Barbara when they were reunited in A Bargain of Necessity (they even hugged!) - it seems our old timer has developed quite the soft spot for the history teacher! The Doctor and Barbara have had a great developmental relationship since they first met - there's also those lovely scenes between them in Inside the Spaceship and The Aztecs.

As the four of them explore, they encounter a giant earthworm (dead), a giant ant (dead), a giant bee (dead), giant seed packets, a giant matchbox and a giant match (also dead). I love Barbara's reaction to seeing the worm: "Doctor, it's a huge snake... it's a fantastic size!" Snigger... Mind you, when Ian sees the giant ant, he has a suspiciously similar reaction. "What a fantastic size!" he says. That's one thing I really dislike in writing - when two completely separate characters have the same, verbatim reaction to something. Instantly you know that it's a phrase the writer, Louis Marks, uses himself, and he's laid it onto the characters in his script. Not just one character, but two. Bad practice, Louis.

"I wonder what sort of a world could produce an insect that size?" ponders Ian. Well, Vortis for a start, Chesterton. You'll find out soon enough... Ian doesn't seem to be able to believe they've been reduced to the size of roughly an inch, and insists it's a "crazy exhibition" such as the world's fair. Taking a sidestep here, the most recent world's fair that Ian would have been aware of would be the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle between April and October, 1962. Did he just read about it, or see it on the TV? Or did Ian visit the Expo personally, and perhaps take a ride in the Spacearium, which simulated a voyage through the Solar System and the Milky Way? Perhaps a trip overseas to America's west coast was a bit too ambitious for Ian, but maybe he visited the most recent world's fair to take place in the UK, 1951's Festival of Britain?

But I digress... As soon as it's established that our heroes have been miniaturised, there's a remarkably well-staged zoom-out from the tiny TARDIS, which it's revealed has materialised in the crack of a garden path, to the country house towering over them. Make no mistake, that is one very clever camera effect for 1964.

Ian falls into the matchbox, which is scooped up by Farrow, a man who suffers from terrible whistling dentures. Thank goodness he's been killed off by the end of the episode, because I'm really not sure I could cope with three episodes worth of him tooting away every time he says the letter S! Following Susan's trademark histrionics as she tries to tell the Doctor and Barbara what's happened to Ian, the Doctor climbs up the side of a garden slab to see how far the matchbox has been taken. The exchange following this, where Jacqueline Hill helps William Hartnell climb back down, is gold dust:

Barbara: "Did he have a matchbox?"
Doctor: "Well how do I know?"
Barbara: "I don't know how you'd know but do you suppose he did?"
Doctor: "I suppose so. You watch what you're doing, will you?"
Barbara: "Doctor, give us some hope. I mean, Ian's inside that matchbox!"
Doctor: "Gently, gently... We've got to find Chesterton!"

It's such a funny exchange between two actors obviously at ease with one another, and fond of each other. The characters bicker in precisely the sort of way that people who are fond of one another do. I love it!

There's then a rather dry but info-packed conversation between Farrow (who looks distractingly like Alfred Hitchcock) and heavy-browed Forester, who doesn't like the fact his investment in new pesticide DN6 is going to be wasted, and promptly shoots the old man dead. Who cares about all this, the Doctor and friends will be out of here soon and all this pesticide guff will be irrelevant, surely?

Ian is reunited with the others faster than you can say "It feels like a scene's been cut here", but on their way back to the TARDIS they're stopped in their tracks by... a giant cat! Now, some detractors of this episode mock the cliffhanger for being rather dull, but in context, this is genuinely dangerous. Our heroes are the size of "roughly an inch", and there's a huge cat looming over them. I'm sorry, but if I was in that situation, I'd be bloody scared too!

First broadcast: October 31st, 1964

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The giant-sized props are very well done, and that camera zoom from the TARDIS model to the house is genius.
The Bad: Frank Crawshaw's dentures.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: Dangerous Journey...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Dangerous Journey (episode 2); Crisis (episode 3)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/planet-of-giants.html

Planet of Giants is available on DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Planet-Giants-DVD/dp/B007Z10IMW