The Edge of Destruction (Inside the Spaceship Episode 1)

The one where the TARDIS crew turns against each other...

The Edge of Destruction is weird right from the outset. As soon as we hear that strange, electronic music, we know things aren't as they should be. It's stock music by Eric Siday, but sounds for all the world like Dr Phibes on his organ! In fact, some of the stock music used in this episode will become much more prolific and familiar during the Troughton era, particularly when it's used in Cybermen stories.

And it's not just the music that's different here. The way the four regular characters act and interact is totally off-kilter too. David Whitaker wrote a surreal two-parter in which something is affecting the TARDIS and its occupants to the extent that they suffer amnesia, paranoia and severe headaches. It's essentially a mini psychological thriller featuring just the regular cast, but the way each actor approaches this experimental piece differs considerably.

Take Carole Ann Ford, for instance. Normally, she wears her heart on her sleeve when it comes to pitching her performance as Susan. She flips into emotional hysteria at the drop of a hat (or, in this episode, at the opening of a door). But in The Edge of Destruction, her performance is elevated by the writing, which depicts her as strange, perhaps possessed and utterly unsettling. She reverts back to the otherworldly feel of the very first episode (An Unearthly Child) and is all the better for it. OK, so Susan is a pretty dangerous unearthly child in this episode, but at least Carole Ann Ford is given something to work with.

She stumbles around the TARDIS like a zombie, but then seems to become possessed by something. She delivers lines with a twisted sneer ("There's something here, inside the ship!"), such as the scene where Barbara wonders where something would hide if it got into the TARDIS. "In one of us!" barks Susan, almost triumphantly. The writing and performance combine to make the viewer suspect that Susan is indeed possessed by an evil consciousness of some kind, that some force has got inside her.

This is never more possible than in the scenes where Susan wanders around the TARDIS in her black smock, eavesdropping behind doors and stealing scissors. Ah, the scissors! First she threatens Ian with them, before collapsing into a torrent of stabby rage, almost eviscerating a TARDIS couch (Ford is genuinely unsettling here). Then she threatens Barbara with them, before she has them confiscated by the no-nonsense history teacher. Carole Ann Ford gets some fabulous material here, and rises to the occasion admirably.

Jacqueline Hill is given the least strangeness to portray, as Barbara acts as a central focus of reason for the audience to relate to. She gets over her disorientation quickly, and views and assesses the strange goings-on with the logic and even-mindedness needed. Barbara is the viewer's heroine, our rock to cling onto amid the frankly bizarre events elsewhere.

Once the Doctor enters the fray after 10 minutes lying unconscious, William Hartnell also shows great skill at coping with the oddness injected into the script by Whitaker, and director Richard Martin (who, incidentally, does a much better job with this material than he did with the Daleks). Hartnell is essentially still the Doctor we know from previous weeks, perhaps with an added soupcon of paranoia, but that fits the character as we've known him so far.

Coping least well with the change in approach for this episode is William Russell, who pitches his performance at odds with his colleagues, giving a very mannered, removed turn which doesn't quite match the piece as a whole. It's as if he's been told by the director to act as strangely as possible, but hasn't realised that he's the only one being this strange. As a result, Ian also comes across as if he might be possessed, but not in an unsettling way like Susan. Ian just seems, well... high on something! Look at the scene where Barbara suggests something might have got into the TARDIS. Russell laughs like he's unhinged: "You mean an animal or a man or something?" It's really not that funny, Ian...

We get to see lots of the TARDIS here, but nothing too exciting. We see the fault locator again, and the food machine, but most of the new bits we see are just blown-up photographic walls or blank corners. Nevertheless, Martin directs the set well, from different angles and distances, adding another layer of oddness to proceedings.

So, ultimately, what's going on? Well, that's anybody's guess at this point. We've got melting clock faces, misbehaving doors, electrified control panels, and a scanner showing holiday snaps from the planet Quinnis. It makes no sense, and although it's all very intriguing, it's also quite wearing and after 15 or so minutes, also quite tedious. We're given moment after moment of oddness, without logic or explanation, and it's not even clear what the problem is, never mind the cause.

There's a growing sense of paranoia as the episode nears its end, with the Doctor accusing the schoolteachers of being the culprits. "You sabotaged my ship. You're the cause of this disaster!" says the Doctor, before Hartnell spirals into a muddle of garbled fluffs. This leads into a humdinger of a slanging match between an indignant Barbara and the Doctor, who ultimately comes off worst. Barbara has plenty of home truths to serve up. "How dare you!" she rages, branding him a "stupid old man" and reminding him that he'd be dead in the Cave of Skulls if it weren't for Ian, or helpless against the Daleks on Skaro. "You ought to go down on your hands and knees and thank us!" Well, that's the Doctor thoroughly read, gurl!

Trying to bring calm and order to the situation, our loveable Doctor drugs Ian and Barbara with some sort of sleeping potion, but is attacked by two strangling hands as the episode draws to an end. Is it an intruder in the TARDIS, or is it a vengeful Ian or Barbara?

The Edge of Destruction is thoroughly weird, a real oddball. Whitaker wrote it weird, but director Richard Martin must have told his actors to really crank it up to turn the words on the page into such incongruous performances. On one level, it's a masterclass in surrealism, but on another, it's just too strange and jarring to be entertaining. There needs to be a good explanation for all this next week!

First broadcast: February 8th, 1964

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Carole Ann Ford excels, revisiting the unearthly child of the first episode and giving Susan an unbalanced twist. And she's damn scary with scissors in her hand!
The Bad: William Russell pitches his performance all wrong. If everybody was acting like he does here, it wouldn't be so bad, but there's just no realism to his choices at all.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: The Brink of Disaster...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: The Brink of Disaster (episode 2)

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