I was really beginning to like them, despite all my rants about the various hijinks they went through. They brought an energy to the show, and made the Doctor become a better person. So, it's sad that they have left him. I don't blame them. They were tired of being mauled and I was tired of watching them be mauled. I liked the Doctor's reaction, though. He was most indignant, almost like a petulant child, when they asked him if they could go back home. He was angry that they wanted to leave, but he pulled it off by pretending that he wasn't going to miss them. But I did like that they left together. I think it would have been strange if one had stayed behind.
Whenever companions have left the most recent Doctors, they always come off as a bit corny, because the Doctor turns into some sort of martyred god-like creature that gives up worldly pleasures because he has to save the universe. He's become very self sacrificial in his old age. I haven't cared much for the current companions and I've been glad to see them leave. "O.M.G. just leave the Doctor you stupid gal, and don't come back! Wait.....OH NOOOO.....You are coming back?!"
In David Tennant's last series, he was literally saving a girl in each episode, and then crying violent tears because he couldn't take them with him. He would stare into the far off distance. Memories would flit across his face, and his large soulful eyes would fill with a heavy sadness, as that one tear fell down, blah, blah, blah. I was actually relieved when Amy Pond left, because I felt they had beaten her character to death. The only Doctor Who companion I liked up until now, was Donna Noble. I felt she was a fresh change from the perky young things always yearning to have the Doctor's babies.
Anyway, I'm not here to talk about the Doctor's current harem, but my point is I'm actually sad that Ian and Barbara have left because they've been my favorite companions so far. I don't think it's going to be the same without them! Of course new people with take their place, and I'll find reasons to complain about them too, but now that it's over with Ian and Barbara, I will always think of them with fondness.
Ah yes, about the episode itself. I can see how many serious Doctor Who fans would find this one particularly aggravating. They took a very special, very serious alien species: The Daleks, and made them comical. We're supposed to find it funny that they've become seriously obsessed Doctor Who killers who want him dead. No, they don't want to take him prisoner. They want him deader than a doornail dead.
But as a non-DW nerd, I enjoyed it mostly all the way through. Yes, they did make the Daleks somewhat comical, but I liked the added comedy. I liked that the Daleks had a personality of sorts.
There was the coughing Dalek as he rises from the sand.
The Dalek making a pirate noise as he falls off the boat.
A couple things I noticed about the Daleks is the new and improved solar panels for their power source, and that they can go up stairs. We don't get to see them rise, but one Dalek tells the other Dalek to get to the roof. No one protested this. So there was either an elevator we didn't know about, or they can float.
They spent a goodly portion of the first episode playing with their Time-Space Visualizer, which they took from the Space Museum. This machine shows them any past parts of space. It doesn't look into the future, though. Bummer! We briefly witness Abraham Lincoln's famous speech [Oh come on.], Francis Bacon Burger, Queen Elizabeth I and William Shakealeg. Here my DW expert leapt forward with indignity because apparently it is a common myth that this queen had heavily influenced a certain number of his writings.
"Has this idea been disproved?" I asked. I like to poke fun at his vast knowledge sometimes.
"No. It has neither been proved, or disproved," he said with a dark scowl.
"Then stop complaining, and let me watch this show!"
My expert DW viewer pointed out with great alacrity when they showed Abraham Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address because it was the 150th Anniversary of said speech on the day that it aired. You see what I have to put up with.
My DW expert also got very excited about the real footage from The Beatles. He loves The Beatles. I do not.
He: "Look, real live footage of the Beatles!"
Me: "So WHAT?"
Anyway, as you know I experience great displeasure when they 'meet' famous people in history. But I guess technically they weren't meeting them, just spying on them. As if that's any better. This machine is used by the Doctor to track where the Daleks were in space, and figure out a way to avoid them. Wait, aren't the Daleks spying on them? So, the Daleks are spying on the Doctor, who is spying on them spying on him. My head hurts. And I loved the Dalek's spinning spy machine. Don't look at it too closely or you will fall asleep. Widescreen, Daleks! Widescreen!
I just have a question about their time on the strange planet with the two suns. Why were Barbara and the Doctor lying on the sand, sunbathing? That was strange. Thank goodness for the Aridians, or we would have never made it through the first three chapters. [Insert sarcasm.]
Now because I know nothing about Doctor Who, I thought that this plot line ended with them leaving the strange sand planet, successfully escaping the Daleks. I was all prepared to start writing, but then my expert DW viewer said,
"Wait! There's more!"
"MORE???? Ye gods!"
Now we get to experience some good quality humor, or maybe just some humor, as the Daleks end up one step behind the Doctor. The Doctor is about 15 minutes ahead of the Daleks, and they are closing in fast. I got to experience a nerdy moment when the Daleks follow the Doctor to the Empire State building. Wait, didn't they come back to this place during David Tennant's reign??? Wow!
I'm going to role my eyes at the scene on the Mary Celeste. Of course it was the Mary Celeste. What other ship would it be? Everything the Doctor does impacts our timeline. And yes, we got a good laugh when one of the Daleks falls off the ship screaming "Arrrrr". Except he dies, so that's not 100% funny.
Then they end up in a mysterious house with Frankenstein, Count Dracula and a lot of really fake bats. You think they've ended up in Transylvania, which would make it downright offensively ludicrous, But it turns out they have landed in a haunted house. Whew! I was this close to complaining! Funny story, they accidentally leave Tricky Vicki here, and she has to stowaway on the Daleks' time traveling machine to get back to the Doctor.
Good thing it wasn't She Who Must Not Be Named, or she would have been caught in about 10 seconds. This is when Tricky Vicki discovers that the Daleks [because they always have to have some slave doing their bidding] create a carbon copy of the Doctor, to kill the real Doctor. This was a clever plan. Sort of....kind of....well not really. Apparently William Hartnell couldn't handle playing two different roles of the same character so they occasionally used a double for some of the scenes. WHAT? Except that sometimes Hartnell himself, was the robot and sometimes he was the Doctor. Now that makes no sense whatsoever. And the robot doctor does not look like William Hartnell.
They land on this strange planet to confront the Daleks and somehow get Vicki back. The Doctor is surprisingly self-sacrificial at the thought of getting Vicki back by whatever means possible. The planet is riddled with very strange looking mushroom creatures. The floor is supposed to look forest-y but you can tell it's a concrete floor.
They find a room that is hidden, and lie in wait for the Daleks to find them. Well, I mean they literally lie in wait. Ian is supposed to be keeping watch while the others just decide to go to sleep. Kind of strange, don't you think? We'll just lie down while we wait to get killed! Yep. And is it me, or is the Doctor sleeping in a very unnatural position? Or does he always sleep like that?
Just when you think they're going to die, these disco balls save the four and take them to their paper mache place while the Daleks grind their proverbial plungers and follow.
Are the funny looking round things good guys? Nope. They just want to put things they find into a room and stare at them all day. That's not weird. Not weird at all. Enter the lonely guy who has been kept a prisoner there for a couple years. He's not strange. Not strange at all.
The intrepid Ian and the Doctor figure out a way to escape by climbing off the tower. Steven Taylor has done nothing in the past two years, apparently. They escape to the TARDIS as the Daleks reach the disco balls' white chocolate palace. There follows a scene of massive destruction, as the Daleks fight the balls. There's alot of smoke and fire, something akin to the destruction of an atomic bomb. I guess the ball creatures were supposed to be the next big thing, but as usual that fell flat. You just can't beat those Daleks in anything.
In the end, Barbara and Ian leave in the Daleks' time machine and make it back to their own time. They destroy the machine once they arrive. Talk about burning all your bridges. But the Doctor watches them through his time machine in stoic lonely silence. The old sod misses them! Vicki attempts to console him, but it just ain't happening.
Steven Taylor loses the four companions on the way to the TARDIS, but they don't show what happens to him at the end. I'm just going to make an educated guess that somehow he slipped on board the TARDIS when no one was looking. We'll see if this guess is correct.
Actually, I would like to know what kind of story Ian and Barbara devise to explain their absence, particularly to the authorities. "Uhhh.....well we did follow the girl, yes, and well she's not actually dead and we didn't kill her. She's just in another time...." Electric chair, did you say?
P.S. I miss color TV. sigh
Next up: The Time Meddler This is the last episode of the second season! Hoorah!
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