The Centre (The Web Planet Episode 6)

The one where we learn how to herd Zarbi...

Zaaaaaaaaaaaaar-bi! Zaaaaaaar-bi-bi-bi! Zaaaaaaar-beeeeeeeeee!

This is the sound of the Menoptera teasing and herding a Zarbi, using vocal commands and intonations which take your breath away. In what has to be one of the weirdest scenes ever in Doctor Who, we watch a bunch of furry giant wasps herd a giant monster ant around a smeary alien planet's surface, and it's all presented as if it's completely normal and everyday. Which maybe it used to be on Vortis, when the Menoptera herded Zarbi like cattle in their flower fields, but at 6pm on a Saturday evening in 1965? Bonkers!

But good bonkers, because The Centre is probably the best of The Web Planet's six episodes. I'm not sure if it's because I've been desensitized to the unadulterated craziness of it all over the preceding five episodes, but somehow this doesn't seem so bad. I find myself caring about what's going on at long last, because the stakes are high and this is perhaps the most dangerous Doctor Who has felt to date.

The Doctor and Vicki are released from their webbed cocoon, but William Hartnell gives a lovely little performance showing the Doctor both in considerable pain, but characteristically defiant. His ordeal has weakened him, and as he converses with the Animus through its drop-down hair-dryer one last time, we see the ordeal etched on his face (he touches his cheek, traumatised). It's about all Hartnell has to do in The Centre, but he makes a good job of it.

The Doctor and Vicki are taken to the Centre, which is a masterpiece of design and lighting (great work from John Wood and Ralph Walton). The Animus is a quivering, writhing spider-entity at the heart of a pulsating room full of tendrils. The pulsing power it emanates in strong, unfiltered light instantly debilitates the already weak Doctor, and Vicki struggles youthfully against its force too, until finally succumbing. The Animus is pretty terrifying when coupled with Catherine Fleming's husky voice and I can well imagine these scenes would have been quite scary for younger viewers back in 1965 (all 11.5 million them!), particularly in light of the apparent paralysis of the Doctor.

The Animus is a pretty frightening concept all round, likened as it is by writer Bill Strutton to a cancer spreading its evil across Vortis. It's modus operandi is unequivocally chilling: "A power, absorbing territory, riches, energy, culture! You come to me! What I take from you will enable me to reach beyond this galaxy, into the solar system, to pluck from Earth its myriad techniques and take from man his mastery of space." The Animus is a fungal infection, a tumour growing and spreading its evil seed across planets, and then galaxies. The Animus is essentially the most powerful adversary the Doctor has yet faced, equal to the likes of the Great Intelligence and Fenric.

The Centre feels like Doctor Who's first ever season finale, even though it's only a story finale. The stakes have never been higher, as the Animus threatens to take the Doctor's knowledge of time and space travel and use it to consume entire galaxies across history. The Doctor is unconscious, Vicki is helpless, Ian is trapped beneath ground, and the only hope in stopping this evil entity is Barbara Wright, a history teacher from 1960s Earth. And rather fabulously, she does it! With help from the Menoptera (and by the way, the death of Hrostar is unexpectedly sobering), Barbara takes the Isop-tope into the heart of the Centre and destroys it. OK, so it all happens a little too easily, and there's a good dollop of coincidence in Barbara finding the Isop-tope hidden in the Astral Map machine, as well as Ian burrowing his way to the surface right inside the Centre, but that aside, the climax is pretty exciting.

What's most surprising about The Web Planet is how little positive effect the Doctor has. His exploits in the Carcinome communicating with the Animus only end up inadvertently aiding the entity's plans, and by the end, when someone of power and intellect is needed to overcome the creature, he is paralysed and unable. For pretty much the entire story it is Barbara who is the lead in getting things done and fighting the Animus, and her fellow travellers are reduced to exposition (the Doctor), irrelevant sub-plots (Ian) or merely standing around being scared (Vicki).

And so it's all the cheekier at the end when Prapillus gives special thanks to the Doctor for his help in defeating the Animus, because actually, the Doctor didn't do anything. It's Barbara who deserves the praise, but she's too busy playing with a now tame larvae gun! The Doctor is more than willing to take that recognition, however, as well as making sure he gets his magical ring back!

After the TARDIS departs, we're treated to a lovely little coda where the Menoptera, Optera, Zarbi and larvae guns get back to business, working together as they used to do, as different races on the same planet. Ian doubts the Doctor will ever return to Vortis, and although he never has (not on TV anyway), it would be an interesting sequel to do so, and to see the ravaged planet returned to its fields of flowers, looking as lush and verdant as all insects deserve.

As Prapillus says about our departing heroes: "Their deeds shall be sung in the Temples of Light. Pictos shall remind us of a time as it circles Vortis. Every time it points to the Needle of the Kings, as it does now, then we shall weave songs to praise the gods of light and thank them that they sent the Earth people to save us from the Animus. Now the Zarbi larvae feed the soil, the flower forest shall grow again across Vortis. But we must not allow the forest to conceal another lurking Animus... The dark power is dead. Fly in, Menoptera, to the delta of lights. We are waiting."

The Centre is a strong finale to a very wobbly serial overall. The Web Planet is packed with ambition and good intentions, but the execution lets it down on several fronts, even when it's trying its hardest. The truth is, Bill Strutton's script was too ambitious for them to have attempted, and they should've either toned it down somehow, or rejected it outright. But the fact is, they didn't. They were not cowed by the demands of the script, only challenged. And while it proved too much as a whole, pockets of it remain successful: it's the best depiction of an alien planet of the Hartnell era (the music, design and costumes make it utterly alien) and the Animus is a truly unnerving creation. But it does plod, it can be crushingly dull, and ultimately it has to be viewed as a failure.

First broadcast: March 20th, 1965

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The Animus in the Centre is a wonderful design. In fact, the Animus is probably the best thing about the entire story.
The Bad: The actual destruction of the Animus is a bit half-hearted. All Barbara seems to do is hold a Christmas bauble up in the air, and the entity is defeated.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (story average: 4.5 out of 10)

NEXT TIME: The Lion...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: The Web Planet (episode 1); The Zarbi (episode 2); Escape to Danger (episode 3); Crater of Needles (episode 4); Invasion (episode 5)

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/2013/07/the-web-planet.html

The Web Planet is available on DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Web-Planet-DVD/dp/B0009WT5BY