Time is Relative - Season Two

Doctor Who is the greatest TV show in the world.


I'm watching it all, in order. It's taking ages.


My thoughts on Season One are here.


Now, perhaps inevitably, Season Two.




1. Planet of the Giants



Doctor Who and friends meet giant ants and giant worms.  And giant matchboxes and giant sinks and giant people's faces.

After a while they come to the sensible conclusion that maybe, actually, it's them who have gone all small, rather than everything else going all big.


If only we could all shed our egocentric views with such clarity, and recognise that it is us, not the world, that may be the problem.

That's not what the story is about, though. It's about running away from big things, going "Aarg! A cat!"

Here, Doctor Who and Susan stand close to a giant plug. Too close, in my opinion. If you fell, you'd sort of fall, then bang yourself on the spoke bits, then properly fall. And you'd get wet. And Doctor Who would probably laugh at you and tut and click his tongue. He's a jerk, sometimes.

This is an exciting shot which suggests that it wasn't just Daleks that made Doctor Who successful. Imagine someone saying, "You should watch this programme - they all go playing in a giant sink and there's a massive worm and a bit where they try to use a phone but they're too tiny." You'd watch that, wouldn't you?


2. The Dalek Invasion of Earth

This story is the reason I love Doctor Who. Or, rather, the Peter Cushing film - based on this story - is the reason.


It's very good. Kind of like 28 Days Later, but with Daleks swooshing around deserted London instead of rage zombies.

These guys are kind of like zombies. The Daleks put helmets on them, and now they have to do Dalek stuff. These two are clearly skiving, though.


Ian saves the day, but once again, Doctor Who takes the credit. "We must pit our wits against them!" he claims, before falling asleep and letting everyone else do all the work.

The Daleks have taken over earth, but still feel the need to fly around everywhere, showing off. "Look at us, we've got a flying saucer."

"We know," say the surviving Earthlings. "You invaded us with it. Stop going on about it. Honestly. The Cybermen were never like this."

This Dalek is taking a selfie. "I am in London!" he's thinking. "Everyone will be amazed at how great I am."

I can only assume he's using his sucker arm as a kind of selfie-stick. That's quite clever. I know it's just a dome with an eyestalk, but I think he looks really happy.




3. The Rescue

This is a weird little story. Doctor Who lands on a planet and 'rescues' a young girl, Vicky, from a spiky faced guy. That's Spiky face, in the background. He's called Koquillion. He's been keeping Vicky captive. That's not his face. It's a mask he wears, for no discernible reason.


It's a bit like the film 'Room', only less disturbing. Unless you think about it too much. Then it's disturbing again.

Here Koquillion considers stealing the TARDIS. If he had succeeded, and the show had become about him, then the rest of the series would have been very different. I can't imagine he'd have bothered saving all the planets and defeating all the monsters. He doesn't seem the type.

That said, neither was Doctor Who at first. He was quite mean. Although, even in his most addled moments, he never wore anything like that on his head.




4. The Romans

The Romans is one of my favourites. Here we see the TARDIS crew hanging out in Italy, drinking loads of wine and - in the case of Ian and Barbara - definitely having sex between scenes.


It's nice to see them just enjoying history, rather than just staring in horror as everyone dies. It's almost a shame when the story starts. And then, of course, loads of people die.

Later on, Vicky falls asleep. I clearly decided that this was an excellent moment of the story and worth capturing. I do like Vicky's nose, though, and spent much of this story looking at her and thinking "lovely face."

Ian and Barbara are great, aren't they? In this scene, they make a really good joke about a fridge. That's the kind of quality Doctor Who companion banter that the series was later to lose sight of.




5. The Web Planet

Space ants pursue Doctor Who across a planet made of cardboard and Vaseline. It's incredibly tedious, despite having some really wacky imagery.

Here we see a Zarbi shouting at the TARDIS. Later, the TARDIS will run away, as if traumatised.

The Doctor and Ian choose to enjoy this adventure whilst wearing space anoraks. It does not catch on.



6. The Crusade

This is a nicely composed shot - one of many in this enjoyable story. Look, there's General Veers from The Empire Strikes Back, pretending to be Richard the Lionheart. 


The story seems to be largely about people trying to have sex with each other. Though, this being Doctor Who, no-one actually comes out and says anything. They all pretend it's about honour, or something. But it's definitely about sex.

Barbara's having none of it, though. I've seen that look. He's no chance.



7. The Space Museum

In this scene,  Ian tries to eat Barbara's cardigan.


He probably remembers this adventure as "The time when I ate a cardigan. And maybe some other stuff happened. But mainly the cardigan thing."

It isn't very good.





8. The Chase

Look, it's the Beatles! They're not actually in the story - Doctor Who is watching them on his space television. But it's still quite fun, and makes a change from last week, when everything was tedious.

It's not just the Beatles, though. The Daleks are in it, too. Here they are excited because they've made an exact copy of Doctor Who. It doesn't look much like him, but they are so happy it would seem churlish to point it out. Not often happy, Daleks.

This is the real Doctor Who. It's a lovely shot, isn't it? He's probably thinking "Did I set my space television to record Taskmaster? I hope so. I bloody love it."

The Daleks are getting pretty cocky by this point. They know that they are the stars of the show, and they are not dealing with it gracefully. This one is just sticking his nose in the camera, shouting, "Hello, it's me, an awesome Dalek. Thank you for watching my show!"

The other Daleks are embarrassed. They have been trying to play it cool. They will shun this Dalek later.

This story says goodbye to Ian and Barbara. This shot is already a photograph in the context of the show - part of a montage of them dicking about in London and rejoicing that they'll never have to put up with The Sensorites again.


It's a lovely picture which sums up how great they were. Doctor Who's first companions, full of joy and life. Very much the end of an era, and a photo which makes me realise how much fun I'd been having watching these stories.


Except the Web Planet, obviously.




9. The Time Meddler

In this story, the writers suddenly realised how much better the past would be if it had aliens in it. And so this guy turned up - The Meddling Monk, a mischievous alien from the Doctor's home planet. He isn't much of a threat - he spends most of his time laughing and pratting about.


He does, however, look like the figure of death from those 1970s public information films about not drowning. Thus he is scary.

Doctor Who disguised himself as Death too. This is lots of fun for all concerned, and everyone here is having a great time. Except Steven. He is thinking, "This feels like enforced fun. I've no time for this." Steven is the kind of person who leaves parties early.

I like the composition of this shot.

Some images are so great that it's almost a shame they belong to a broader narrative. This is one such image. The Doctor has done a thing to the Monk's TARDIS, making it small. Is it a cunning reversal of the 'Giants' motif in the season opener? Probably not.






That's it for season 2. See you later, for more adventures in space. And time!


Click here for season 3.

Back to season 1