The Abominable Snowmen Episode Six

The one where Victoria learns the Jewel of the Lotus prayer...

I keep harping on about it, but Wolfe Morris really is the best thing about this story. The way he spits "Song-sten" gives me the willies, and the scene where Padmasambhava laughs maniacally at the death of Khrisong is truly creepy. His laugh sounds like a croak, a creaking gate, but is filled with malevolence. Wolfe Morris deserves much more praise for his performance in this story than he ever gets, especially as his connection to the Yeti myth goes back years. He played the character of Nima Kusang in the BBC Sunday Night Theatre play The Creature in 1954, and reprised the role when Nigel Kneale's script was remade by Hammer for the big screen as 1957's The Abominable Snowman (starring movie Dr Who Peter Cushing). His casting in Doctor Who was no coincidence.

Morris gets over Padmasambhava's internal conflict so well. His voice wavers and falters as the Great Intelligence tries to subsume his right-thinking self (the bit where he says: "You will no-o-o-o-o-o-w..." and just tails off as he loses control is heartbreaking and chilling).

The Abominable Snowmen Episode Five

The one where Victoria gets hypnotised twice...

Things are finally starting to warm up in this episode as we amble towards the finale. It's a pedestrian serial, but that's no bad thing in my eyes. I like it when a story takes its time to unravel the mystery and peel away the layers, but sadly with The Abominable Snowmen, there aren't really very many layers to peel. We're aware of a threat from an unseen alien force as early as episode 2, but here we are, three episodes later, and we're yet to actually see the thing.

It's a contemplative serial, but sadly doesn't take an awful lot of time to flesh out the characters. A story leading on atmosphere rather than incident would ordinarily place the characters to the fore, but the monks are all pretty interchangeable, except perhaps for the fanatical Khrisong, while Professor Travers gets next to no development after episode 1. Jack Watling was a fine and respected actor, so it's a shame he wasn't given more to do. Nevertheless, he is very good with what he's given, and the scene where he tries to remember what he saw on the mountain is spooky, especially when he describes it as "like a shadow on my mind".

The Abominable Snowmen Episode Four

The one where the monks begin to turn on each other...

This is a Yeti-heavy episode, and also boasts oodles of gorgeous location footage (I know we can't see it, but the telesnaps show it's a pretty extravagant amount). What bugs me about these Yeti is they don't make a sound. They don't roar or growl as they do in later appearances, they move about silently, which reduces their scare factor considerably for me. Coupled with their cutesy appearance and their wobbling gait, it's perhaps just as well we can't see how silly they probably looked.

I just find it hard to believe that the Yeti are something to be afraid of. They're big, but that's about it. Apart from the opening seconds of episode 1, we've not seen them kill anybody, although we've been told they've killed several monks (quite why, I'm not sure). Everybody seems afraid of their size and their reputation, with little real evidence. When the Doctor and Jamie approach the dormant Yeti outside the TARDIS, this reduces their threat even further.

The Abominable Snowmen Episode Three

The one where the Yeti come to get their ball back...

While there's not been an awful lot going on in the first two episodes of this story, at least it's been a slow-burning mystery laced with intrigue and moments of incident. It's not the most complex or exciting storyline, but it's been suitably entertaining and giving just about enough to keep the viewer interested.

However, episode 3 really does dip, with very little actually happening between beginning and end to move the plot on. Just about the only thing we learn is that the big bad is some non-corporeal alien thing called the Great Intelligence which is hoping to focus on Earth, grow and take physical form. This is all shared with the viewer via Wolfe Morris's fabulously sinister vocal delivery, swinging from peaceful and gentle to aggressive and rasping at the drop of a (Himalayan) hat. Without Morris's intensely creepy performance, Padmasambhava's threat would be void (the bit where Padmasambhava moans "Ohhhhhhh...", half in exhaustion, half in ecstasy, is very eerie). He's also got a really cool game board of the Himalayas and some beautiful carved Yeti pieces. Want.

The Abominable Snowmen Episode Two

The one where the Yeti turns out not to be a Yeti at all...

Awwwww, the Yeti actually look really sweet! It's a shame that, now I can see them, the monsters in this serial have lost all their threat, because they just look like giant teddy bears. They might have quite nasty looking claws, but the costumes themselves (while an impressive achievement) fail in trying to make them seem a formidable creature. They don't even make any growling or roaring sounds (as they would in The Web of Fear). Their cuddly appearance, coupled with the rather endearing way they lumber and wobble across the landscape in pursuit of Jamie and Victoria, make them one of the least successful monsters of the Troughton era. I just want to take one home for those cold winter nights when the central heating isn't quite cutting it!

We begin to learn that this is not the first time the Doctor has visited the Detsen monastery (and by the way, Detsen is probably named after Trisong Detsen, one of the three Dharma Kings who established Buddhism in Tibet, along with Songtsen Gampo and Ralpacan - also names with equivalents in this serial). He has visited before, in 1630, when the monastery's holy ghanta went missing. That'll be the Tibetan bell which the Doctor's got in his bag then! It's nice to have a Doctor Who story that is a sequel of sorts to an unseen adventure, and it's doubly satisfying to know that this story will have its own sequel too.

The Abominable Snowmen Episode One

The one where the Doctor doesn't get the welcome of a lifetime that he expects...

This episode surely has to have one of the quickest deaths in Doctor Who history? The titles have barely faded away before we witness the violent death of a man called John at the hands (or claws) of a mysterious creature. The actor playing John isn't credited (it was Reg Whitehead), but it has to qualify among the fastest demises in the show's long history! It certainly sets the scene well, before we enter more familiar territory by joining the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria aboard the TARDIS.

The dynamic between Patrick Troughton, Fraser Hines and Deborah Watling is notable by its fluidity. They seem very happy in one another's company and at ease with the repartee between the three characters. There's a noticeable spark between the trio which helps to create a familiar, "family" feel to the show. Brother, sister and crazy old uncle.

The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 4

The one where nobody's quite as dead as they seem...

... Klieg fires his Cyber-gun at the Doctor, we hear a cry... but it's Callum who's been shot, not the Doctor! Phew! Luckily, Callum's only wounded, not dead, so he can sit out the rest of the episode clutching his arm with absolutely no lines to say (which is just as well considering Clive Merrison's awful American accent).

More importantly, what have the Cybermen done to poor Toberman? It looks like they've enacted some form of Cyber-conversion on him, but not a full conversion, not yet. Perhaps they're feeling a little tired because the Cyber-Controller packs them all back off to bed, ordering them to get back into their tomb cells to conserve energy. Which is a bit of a letdown, to be honest. And that's how episode 4 feels at times, a bit of a disappointment, because although it's got some lovely set pieces, it never really fulfills the potential you have for it in your imagination.

The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 3

The one where the Doctor talks about his family...

I hate how I love those awful cliffhangers and reprises where the actors have to stand still doing nothing while the titles roll over their dormant faces. They're particularly bad in The Tomb of the Cybermen - episode 1 ends with a full 22-second hold on the Cyber-dummy, while episode 3 opens on the Cyber-Controller waiting for the titles to finish for a full nine seconds before he can speak!

What I find scary about the Cybermen is not the hotch-potch way they look, but the things they say. Their implacable determination to survive and conquer is admirably unnerving, and they are unwavering in their belief that they will succeed. They state several times in this episode that their intention is to convert the humans into Cybermen, intoning "You belong to us. You will be like us". But the most chilling line is when Jamie says: "We're human - we're not like you!", and the Cyberman turns round and says: "You will be."

The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 2

The one where the Cybermen wake up from their tombs...

The reprise of last week's cliffhanger compounds just how rubbish the sequence was, making it even more obvious that it's just a Cyber-dummy and not the real thing. And then when the Doctor tries to reenact the cliffhanger (perhaps to show director Morris Barry how it should have been done?), I have to wonder how in the world they could have missed that whacking great cannon that slides out of a very wobbly wall at the back. This time the laser cannon does not retract, which is convenient on this occasion, and it's good of Victoria to reproduce her piercing scream from the first time around too.

Viner (played by the ever brilliant Cyril Shaps) begins to develop an acute fear of the building, which he says is alive and "watching us", which is reinforced by my own observation in episode 1 that the Cyberman iconography all around them acts as a sinister presence throughout, as if the Cybermen really are watching them somehow. As the episode goes on, Viner's fear of the building around him grows in intensity (he calls it deadly and sinister), and reminds me of the early symptoms of robophobia that we see much later in The Robots of Death.

The Tomb of the Cybermen Episode 1

The one where the Doctor joins an archaeological expedition...

I used to think that the opening sequence of this episode would've made a great jumping-on point for the series, almost like a reintroduction of the series to a stranger in a way they'd understand. But on viewing it again, I've changed my mind. It still looks great: for some reason director Morris Barry shot the entire TARDIS scene on film, giving the ship a gloss not seen for a few years. But the sound is tinny and echoes like they're in a cavern, and the way Barry directs it doesn't quite work as well as it should. We're shown the TARDIS police box first, but we're not shown anybody entering it. We then have the fab establishing shot where we follow Victoria and the Doctor through the doors into the TARDIS, but Barry stays tight on Patrick Troughton and Deborah Watling's head and shoulders, and at no point attempts a camera shot which demonstrates how big the TARDIS actually is inside.

We're told it's big, but we don't see that it is. One of the best rules of storytelling is to show, not tell, but Barry fails here. And although a couple of months have passed for the viewer since The Evil of the Daleks, from Victoria's perspective, it's been only moments since she learnt her father was dead, but she seems remarkably together here, as if unaffected by his loss. Still, while it has its sticking points, it makes a grand opening for a new season, and almost acts as a pre-credits sequence as the story title doesn't come up until well over two minutes into the episode.