Written by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis
Directed by Derek Martinus
Main Cast:
The Doctor - William Hartnell (final appearance as regular)
The Doctor - Patrick Troughton (first appearance as regular at the end of episode four)
Polly - Anneke Wills
Ben - Michael Craze
Main Guest Cast-
General Cutler - Robert Beatty
Barclay - David Dodimead
Synopsis:
The Doctor, Ben and Polly arrive at the South Pole in 1986. At the South Pole base, General Cutler leads a group of scientists who are monitoring a space probe that's taking readings of Earth's atmosphere.
The probe begins to suffer from a power loss, and the astronauts are having trouble controlling the probe. The reason for the power drain is the arrival of Earth's twin planet, Mondas. Cybermen arrive from Mondas and take over the base while General Cutler and the scientists try unsuccessfully to save the space probe.
The Cybermen inform everyone that they intend to destroy the Earth, but that they will take the humans back with them to Mondas and turn everyone into Cybermen. General Cutler and the scientists at the base are eventually able to overpower their captors and capture a few of the Cybermen's weapons.
General Cutler decides to destroy Mondas with a Z-bomb that's housed at the South Pole base. Barclay, one of the scientists, along with Ben and Polly have their concerns about using this weapon against Mondas. They fear that the radiation from the bomb will contaminate the Earth after the destruction of Mondas.
General Cutler is undeterred, however. A second space probe has been sent up to rescue the first, which has already been destroyed. General Cutler's son is the pilot of the second space probe and is determined to rescue him, at all costs. Barclay and Ben devise a plan to sabotage the Z-bomb, but they are caught in the act.
A second group of Cybermen arrive at the South pole base, and an all out battle between the Cybermen and the base soldiers takes place. The Cybermen eventually win this battle, and order that the Z-bomb be dismantled before negotiations can begin. The Doctor, seemingly recovered from an illness that has left him incapacitated during many of these events, urges General Cutler to agree to this. The Doctor is sure that Mondas will eventually be destroyed, having absorbed too much energy from the Earth.
The Cybermen escort Ben and Barclay to the bomb chamber, where they will dismantle the bomb. The Cybermen also take Polly hostage, and hold her aboard the Cybermen's ship. Meanwhile, General Cutler leads a revolt against this second group of Cybermen once he learns that the Cybermen intend to use the Z-bomb to destroy the Earth. Cutler is killed by the Cybermen and The Doctor is taken to the Cybermen's ship as well.
Ben and Barclay, meanwhile, discover that the Cybermen have a weakness to radiation. Using power rods from the station's power supply, they are able to defeat their Cybermen captors. Meanwhile, Mondas breaks apart as the planet absorbs too much power from the Earth. This destroys the remaining Cybermen at the base. Power is restored to the base, and the second space probe with Cutler's son has returned to full power.
Ben rescues Polly and The Doctor from the Cybermen's ship and they return to the Tardis. Once there, The Doctor falls to the floor, where his features change to a much-younger man.
Review:
The Tenth Planet is, of course, a historic story for Doctor Who. It's the first meeting with the Cybermen. It's also the first time we see The Doctor regenerate, from the First Doctor to the Second Doctor.
Still, I felt a bit underwhelmed by the story. Because The Doctor is missing in action through much of the story, it falls to the other characters to carry things. General Cutler drives much of the action and I felt his character was a bit of a cliche, the shoot first and ask questions later military man. One does wonder why he was given command of the South Pole base and put in charge of a group of scientists.
The Cybermen are also a bit underwhelming in this story. While traditional guns are ineffective against them, the Cyberman are easily defeated by their own weapons, which Cutler uses to some effectiveness when the second wave of Cybermen arrive from Mondas at the South Pole base.
The Tenth Planet is one of the few stories where the extant material that still exists hasn't been released to DVD. Plans are in the works to release the Tenth Planet on DVD later this year, with the one missing episode (episode four) being animated much like what was done with The Reign of Terror and The Invasion. I'm looking forward to watching this once it come out, but in the meantime I watched the BBC's VHS release of The Tenth Planet, which included a telesnap reconstruction of the missing episode four. I hope that the BBC will include the reconstruction as an extra on the DVD, otherwise I'll be holding on to my VHS copy as well.
To sum up, I found The Tenth Planet to be simply average Doctor Who. The fact that The Doctor himself is missing through much of the story simply doesn't help things. I just didn't connect with General Cutler, and it's General Cutler who really drives this particular story. Still, I'd on the whole recommend watching the Tenth Planet. It's by far the most complete story from the fourth series/season, with three of the four episodes still in existence. One might want to wait for the DVD release and the newly animated episode, but if you can get a hold of and play the VHS version, the reconstruction that the BBC did of episode four is pretty good.
Up next, we'll get our first real look at the Second Doctor and a return of The Doctor's most iconic adversaries in The Power of the Daleks.
