The Brink of Disaster (Inside the Spaceship Episode 2)

The one where a faulty spring almost wipes out Doctor Who before it's barely begun...

It's Ian! The mysterious hands reaching for the Doctor's neck at the end of the last episode were those of a disorientated (and drugged) Ian Chesterton, who is apparently trying to warn the Doctor not to go near the console because it's electrified. However, I don't blame the Doctor for thinking the worst of Ian, because when I'm warning people about such catastrophes, I don't go around wrapping my hands around their necks.

Ian collapses to the floor dressed in only a dressing gown (and if you've ever had any inclination to see Ian's undergarments, here's your chance), but despite Barbara's defence that he's fainted, the Doctor insists: "He's only play acting!" You're not wrong there, Doctor - William Russell continues to play this like he's been smoking marijuana all week.

"Can't you see, I've found you out!" accuses the Doctor. "Why don't you admit it?"

"Yes, why don't you?" adds Susan, accompanied by a chilling piano slide straight out of The Beginner's Guide to Bernard Hermann. Yay, Carole Ann Ford's here to show us what the true definition of strange is!

Costume designer Daphne Dare dresses Susan and Barbara in full-length black shifts here, which must be their TARDIS nightwear, and they look for all the world like they've wandered in off the set of an Ingmar Bergman film. And that feels right for the atmosphere of this piece, which is directed by Frank Cox with a bit more panache than Richard Martin last week.

William Hartnell gives grand indignation as the Doctor goes about accusing the teachers of sabotage and plotting against him and Susan. He's taking great pleasure in giving Ian and Barbara an ear-bashing. "You're getting off the Ship, Chesterton!" he says. "Now?" replies a groggy Ian. "Yes, now. Get up!" the Doctor barks.

Then, WTF!? A bloody big loud car horn blares out (from the fault locator), which Susan identifies as a danger signal. A standard alarm would've done, or even what we would later take for granted as the Cloister Bell, but this aural assault seems right out of place and adds a frisson of unintended comedy to the tension of the scene. Sound effects provided by Harpo Marx!

This danger signal changes the course of the Doctor's reasoning, however. As soon as he realises the fault locator is trying to tell them something, he changes his opinion that the teachers are to blame, and begins to understand that something much worse is happening. "We're on the brink of destruction," he states. "All four of us must work closely together." Well, charming! Just a moment ago he was going to put Ian and Barbara off the Ship in their nightwear!

Barbara then begins to make some pretty huge leaps of logic, connecting the unexplained events they've experienced to form a semblance of an answer as to what's going on. She somehow works out that the melting clock face was time being taken away from them, and that the light flashing at regular intervals on the fault locator was time being given back, "because it's running out". Huh? Run that past me again, Babs. In fact, all of the assumptions and connections she makes to piece together the mystery don't make much logical sense. Only somebody who's read David Whitaker's script would be able to come to these conclusions, and that leaves the viewer feeling cheated and short-changed.

"Can it possibly be then, that this is the end? We have ten minutes to survive," claims the Doctor. "Ten minutes?" echoes Barbara, and I half expected her to add: "That's ages. What if I get bored? I need a television, couple of books, anyone for chess...? Bring me knitting!"

From hereon in, the oddness of the last episode and a half begins to fall away as the foursome get on top of what's been going on. Every time the Doctor makes an accurate assumption, the TARDIS thuds out a confirmation, as if it's saying: "Yes, you're right! Well done!"

Then, 13 minutes into the episode, something astonishing happens. The lights dim, Hartnell turns to camera, his back to the flickering console, and Cox slowly pans in on him as he gives the most amazing speech. Describing the creation of a solar system with beautiful colour and animation, Hartnell is utterly spell-binding, grabbing the attention with both hands and refusing to let go. You can see the actor feeling his way carefully through his lines, bringing a magic and increasing mania to his delivery, climaxing in a crescendo of fist-biting intoxication. For that 60 seconds alone, William Hartnell earns a career's worth of wages. This moment alone could well be his finest work as Doctor Who.

And so we learn that all the weird stuff that's been happening - the melting clocks, the holidays snaps from Quinnis, the headaches, the mania, the monster roars and the empty food machine - are all because the spring in the Fast Return Switch has jammed. And at that precise moment, the credibility of the entire story comes tumbling down. Could David Whitaker not have thought of a better, more credible explanation for it all than an unsprung spring? It's just so overwhelmingly weak. I mean, everybody was almost killed, the TARDIS was seconds from destruction, Ian's wristwatch was ruined! How could it possibly be this rubbish? Why couldn't it be a fault in the fault locator or something? Anything! Sheesh...

(Side note: The Doctor's attempt to get Ian and Barbara back to London in 1963 by using the Fast Return Switch surely wouldn't have worked, because they'd visited Earth in prehistoric times between then and their adventure on Skaro. Wouldn't they have just zapped back to 100,000 BC rather than 1963?).

When the switch is fixed the TARDIS lurches back to life, that familiar, reassuring hum of the control room rising slowly back to normality. "We're all safe now," asserts the Doctor. "But it was a narrow squeak." Just a bit, Doctor! I think the first thing you need to do is get some WD-40 on that control console!

Everybody gets back to normal pretty quickly. Ian forgives the Doctor for his hard-hearted accusations, but Barbara is less forgiving. She remembers... and she's not about to forget. This leads to a delightful little scene between the Doctor and Barbara where he apologises for his behaviour (in his own way) and it feels as if this is a major turning point in the relationship between all four regulars. The Doctor has been made to see the error of his ways of thinking, to appreciate the thoughts and feelings of those who have joined him on his aimless meanderings. "What do you care what I think or feel?" snipes Barbara. "As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves," says the Doctor.

And he certainly knows how to charm a woman. He compliments her on her new outfit (which is, in truth, magnificently drab), adding: "We must look after you, you're very valuable", then holds her coat for her as she pulls it on, finishing with the perfect gentleman's flourish of an arm to escort her outside. The two have bonded for good, and Hartnell and Jacqueline Hill have given us a beautiful little character scene to be cherished.

The Brink of Disaster is more rewarding than The Edge of Destruction simply because there's less of the alienating weirdness. It's all well and good having our heroes acting strangely, perhaps due to possession by an alien force, but the sequence of events in the first episode make no logical sense so the viewer is left permanently befuddled by it. The ultimate explanation for these events might be utter bobbins, but at least the concluding part has our heroes being themselves again, which is a relief (especially in William Russell's case). This two-parter is an interesting experiment which does not really work, but it is peppered with fine moments of tension and surreality thanks to some thoughtful direction.

First broadcast: February 15th, 1964

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: William Hartnell in the 13th minute. Simple as that.
The Bad: David Whitaker really lets the viewer (and himself) down with the explanation for the weird events. It's a faulty spring? I mean, really...!?
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (story average: 7 out of 10)

NEXT TIME: The Roof of the World...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: The Edge of Destruction (episode 1)

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/2013/04/the-edge-of-destruction-aka-inside.html

Inside the Spaceship is available as part of the Doctor Who - The Beginning box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Beginning-Unearthly-Destruction/dp/B000C6EMTC