It is time to end season 5 with The Wheel in Space.
The TARDIS materialises on board a spaceship, the Silver Carrier, where the Second Doctor and Jamie are attacked by a servo robot. Jamie contacts a nearby space station known as the Wheel and they are rescued. Meanwhile, the Silver Carrier discharges Cybermats, which also travel to and enter the station. These pave the way for the invasion of the station by Cybermen, who intend to use its direct radio link with Earth as a beacon for their invasion fleet.
Zoe is great, and I really enjoyed her introduction here; her counterpoint to Jamie makes for a great dynamic. The stowaway scene is fun, and I absolutely love the Doctor stopping to give Zoe an episode rerun the information she needs to make an informed decision about looking the TARDIS (presumably the Doctor has learned a lesson from what happened with Victoria…)
As for the rest of the story, I liked it overall but can’t think of much of anything particularly to say about it. I did think there was something with really interesting potential for exploration in the pairing of Cybermen as an enemy with a new companion whose fellow humans criticize her for “lacking emotions” and being “all brains, no heart”; it’d have been super interesting to see something more done with that parallel.
It’s a well-known fluff (or at least mishearing on the part of fandom). The line is supposed to be something about ‘sectional air supply’.
The Wheel in Space is, for me, one of the more boring stories of Season 5 (and there’s a fair bit of competition…). It isn’t a patch on Tomb of the Cybermen, the guest cast are fairly generic and we have yet another ‘gruff base commander who won’t listen to reason’.
The Wheel in Space is a mess, but at least it’s an interesting mess. It’s odd that this is by David Whitaker as it is nowhere near the sublime quality of The Crusade, Power of the Daleks or Evil of the Daleks. That said, there are some weird and far out ideas in here, and there’s an interesting spirit of adventure re: space travel and exploration. I’m really rather fond of episode 1 on the Silver Carrier, and appreciate the use of the Cybermats. The Cyber plan is utter lunacy, of course, but I just can’t dislike this story. Of Troughton’s Cyberman stories, it’s on a par with The Moonbase for me, with Tomb being significantly higher and The Invasion ruling supreme at the very pinnacle.
As has been mentioned, this story introduces the wonderful Zoe Herriot who, today, reads as overtly neurodivergent. She’s one of the best companions of the Second Doctor’s tenure, and develops a lovely relationship with Jamie and the Doctor.
It was only about a month ago I watched this one, yet I can hardly remember anything of it except for the facts that it introduces Zoe and that Jamie first created the name John Smith for the doctor. I think the fact that I can’t remember any of the plot speaks to it’s dullness, which lines up with the 3 star rating I gave it. I tend to give that rating to stories that are fine I guess, not commiting any sins but nothing memorable either
If you want a fun read, go find this story in About Time 2. Miles and Wood really go off on the Cyber plan in the “Things That Don’t Make Sense” section.
While it is rather slow to get started, once it does, it moves along at a decent pace. While not the most complex or action packed serial, there was enough here to keep me engaged the entire time. The whole cast of characters is interesting and has a part to play in the overall story.
While the Cybermen voices are still in the bad era, their presence in this story is welcome and rather well done. Zoe also fits right in with the regular cast.
The recon was rather well done. As much as I appreciate Loose Cannon, they can’t compete with the official releases.
This story to me is just as bland and boring as one of the previous Troughton Cyberman stories, The Moonbase was. This isn’t to say there wasn’t anything enjoyable about it.as usual, the Doctor and Jamie are a fantastic pair and work together brilliantly. Zoe is introduced here and I really like her character. It’s unfortunate how she gets all this flack from the crew members for being too cold and calculating when they’d all be dead if not for her. Now, when it comes to the bad, there’s quite a lot. I think the first four episodes are insanely slow and take so long to get moving. The last two are slightly quicker and more engaging but those first four are just mind numbing, at least to me. I’m also getting really tired of having these station commanders be obsessed with keeping their clean reputation and therefore avoiding all possible dangers that aren’t immediately obvious. It just happened with Robson and now we get an even blander version of him in Jarvis. It’s unfortunate because every other story in this season was genuinely great but outside of the main cast, this one is just far from great.
Agreeing with the consensus that the general plot of the episode is pretty weak and all over the place (the Cybermen just feel so generic here, they could be any old race of robots)… but the character work is splendid. That first episode that has almost entirely just the Doctor and Jamie after Fury of the Deep reflecting on Victoria’s departure is so good. And Zoe is brilliant, as per usual, definitely the second best 2 companion. Solid 5-6/10.
Once upon a time, I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of The Wheel in Space novelisation, and it didn’t live up to my memories of actually watching the serial back in the 1960s. So I get why some people might think the story is a mess or a bit boring. However, you have to remember that when it was first broadcast, we didn’t have Star Trek or much in the way of rival space-based adventure shows (okay, there was Lost in Space, if you fancied babysitting Will Robinson and the other Dr Smith).
So if, like me, you were a kid excited and thrilled by the Space Race and the promise that the future held, then The Wheel in Space was wonderful viewing. Especially when watched one episode at a time — just 25 minutes or so on a Saturday night, and then a whole week to wait before you got to see Pat Troughton’s Doctor and the Cybermen again. And my word, I adored the Cybermen. It was absolute bliss!
But, sadly, yes — I think this is one of those times when you really had to be there.
Hmm. After a slow story in which our regulars don’t do much and there’s a lot of shouting amongst the guest characters, we get another, even slower story with our regulars still not doing much and some shouting amongst the guests (although there is less of it here, fortunately). The Cybermen’s plan here is ludicrous, and the fact that it takes five parts for it to actually become a threat that requires the Doctor’s involvement is even more so - I love a slowburn, but there’s a difference between being a slowburn and just being plain slow, and this serial doesn’t seem to understand that. The side cast are, for the most part, amongst the most annoying and clichéd of any of the "Troughton base crews’ so far - only Anne Ridler’s Doctor Corwyn manages to rise above the material and make any kind of mark. Otherwise, these are all character archetypes we’ve seen before, and without the novelty of earlier stories, it just feels like the show is stuck in a holding pattern, rather tiredly repeating things done much better previously.
There is the odd bit of great stuff, to be fair. As others have said, Zoe is fantastic (although the way other characters go out of their way to call her a robot on at least three separate occasions feels like Whitaker is smacking me over the head saying “SEE, SHE’S CLEVER BUT EMOTIONALLY STUNTED, THAT’S HER CHARACTER, DO YOU SEE?! WELL, DO YOU?! HERE IT IS AGAIN, HOW ABOUT NOW?!”), Troughton and Hines are supremely watchable as ever (and it’s impressive that Troughton is still finding new ways to play the Doctor, after so many episodes), and I do like some of the visuals and imagery here. The new Cybermen look wonderful, and get to do some visually interesting things, like have a Cyber-yawn and Cyber-stretch before busting out of their Cyber-eggs, as well as having a very ethereal looking Cyber-skip through space in part 6. The new Cybermats are also a bit more effective than the old ones, and at least it’s no longer actively funny when they gang up on and menace the crewmen. The sets look quite nice too, although again, they aren’t very distinct from the sets in some of the earlier Troughton serials.
I don’t think this is terrible or anything, but it is a bit bland, definitely unoriginal, and too slow-paced even for me. A rather disappointing end to season 5, unfortunately. It’s amusing to think that the Doctor is showing Zoe a repeat of The Evil of the Daleks at the end in part to try and convince her his usual adventures are a bit more exciting.
I watched this in the lost in time dvd then later in life watched the actual full recon and surviving eps the story is definitely not as I thought it would be it’s crazy
I like Zoe but this is a REALLY average story to me. Honestly I can’t recall any things that happen apart from everybody in the beginning being slightly annoyed by zoe:'s smugness and the fact she’s always correct
I watched the BBC iPlayer recon of Episodes 1 and 2 last Friday which I’ve never watched before. Surprised myself by actually enjoying it a fair bit so I’ll be interested in seeing what I think about the whole story by the end.
The hugely stereotypical nationalities are a bit on the nose but I do always give 60s Who credit for at least trying to depict race and gender equality in the future.
The first episode has David Whitaker all over it what with the mercury, food machine and regulars exploring a seemingly abandoned environment. It’s very Season 1.
