In Defence of The Web Planet - Episode 1: The Web Planet
Things everyone should acknowledge are good points:
- Any of the scenes between Barbara and Vicki: the admission that Barbara and Ian had been having adventures in Rome that the Doctor and Vicki didn’t know about, including meeting Nero; Vicki’s suspicion towards the aspirin and likening it to leeches; Vicki telling Barbara about school and unintentionally insulting Barbara by thinking her school was a nursery.
- Bill Strutton (or Dennis Spooner) remembering that Vicki is from the future rather than writing her like a normal teenager (like they did all the time with Susan).
- The scene with Ian’s tie - the Doctor’s comment about Ian’s trousers falling down without his makeshift belt being ‘your affair, not mine’ is hilarious.
- The Doctor’s effervescent joy at trying to solve the mystery of what has trapped the TARDIS - there’s one scene where he literally runs off camera with excitement.
- The scene with the pyramid thing and the comments from Ian and the Doctor about it not being Nelson on the top; the Doctor’s response ‘No pigeons’ is so off hand it’s brilliant (they’re literally on a planet with no signs of life at all at this point). (The transcript is wrong for this, it has the Doctor saying ‘pity’ rather than ‘pigeons’. It’s definitely pigeons - I’ve checked the subtitles).
- Barbara spring cleaning and her evident joy at sorting out the Doctor’s mess.
- The TARDIS console spinning around from some unknown force and Barbara being taken over by her gold bracelet.
- The Doctor’s expression of sheer anxiety when he finds the TARDIS missing at the cliffhanger. So many of the stories in the early days are tales of the Doctor and companions being separated from the TARDIS, their only place of safety.
I love that, in the Hartnell era, they could have entire episodes of the TARDIS crew just exploring a strange new world. I actually think the set for Vortis is pretty good - it’s otherworldly and the craggy outcrops are quite distinctive. The brief appearances of the Zarbi whet the appetite for a truly alien species and there’s also the venom grubs which look quite cute.