Day 30 — January 30th 2021
The Web Planet and The Zarbi
The Web Planet (The Web Planet — Episode One)
Poor unloved The Web Planet. This is another one of those stories with a really bad reputation, which it’s never been able to shake. In the 2014 Doctor Who Magazine poll it placed 219th out of 241 stories (which, in fairness, placed it above The Sensorites).
And let’s be honest, it’s crap.
Oh, God, I so want to love The Web Planet. I want to be a champion for it. I want to say ‘isn’t it bold?’ and ‘aren’t they brave to try it?’, but I’m watching today and I’m thinking it’s more bold that they decided to cut out an episode of Planet of Giants but left this story intact.
First things first; you do have to admire the production team for daring to do it. The Web Planet The Web Planet remains the only Doctor Who story to feature the regular cast as the only humanoid characters. And that’s quite an achievement, because as the six episodes play out the cast is quite large. We have ants and butterflies and venom grubs, but they’re all totally alien. That’s a bold move.
And they obviously had pretty high hopes for the success of the story, because it receives Doctor Who’s third Radio Times cover to promote the launch of the serial. It’s a pretty good cover, too, and certainly makes the story look captivating.
It’s also the last Hartnell story to make it onto the cover of the Radio Times, so make of that what you will.
There was a huge amount of press interest in the story, and we’ve got loads of photographs from the filming, with William Hartnell messing around with a pair of Zarbi.
And yet as much as I can sit here and applaud the sheer guts they must have had to think they could pull this story off… it simply doesn’t work. And I’m saying that after Episode One! I really wanted to go in today and find lots to love about The Web Planet — heck, I enjoyed The Sensorites loads and everyone says that’s rubbish — but I feel like the story is working against me.
I think, mostly, I’m just frustrated. Frustrated because there’s actually lots of really good ideas in this first episode, and they should add up to being a really compelling story. The TARDIS is being pulled down to the surface of a planet and Doctor Who is powerless to stop it! All the power has been drained from the ship! The planet has baths of acid, and the echoes sound almost as though they take a life of their own! Barbara finds herself drawn unrelentingly from the safety of the TARDIS and out into the barren landscape beyond! The TARDIS doors open and close of their own accord, and the central console spins around in circles!
And yet, frankly, I’m bored. Each and every one of those things should be brilliant, but none of them really seem to have any life to them. The direction certainly isn’t trying very hard to make them scary. The TARDIS is drained of power… but it’s still lit brightly. Why not cut the lights down? The TARDIS looks brilliant when illuminated from the roundels only (as we’ll see in later stories like The Ribos Operation), and I feel like we need some of that here. A soft glow, with the lights on the console flashing wildly in warning, blinking in the darkness.
Good ideas are a starting point, but you need to do something with them.
Anyway, let’s not be entirely negative, because there is a really good bit in today’s episode, as Vicki and Barbara have a chat about the education system in their respective times. Vicki responding to Barbara’s description with an off-the-cuff ‘Oh, it was a nursery school?’ made me genuinely laugh. Vicki works best when she’s slightly bored of everything (as with her lack of curiosity in The Romans), and I’m loving it here.
Everything else here has just left me cold, though, and I’m sad about that.
3/10
The Zarbi (The Web Planet — Episode Two)
I can’t decide if the costumes for this story are brilliant or awful. I think they might fall into the category of being ‘brilliantly awful’. I’m coming back again to that idea of the sheer ambition on display; to think that they could successfully bring to life a world of giant insects in the confines of Riverside Studio One…
And, well, they do sort of manage it. Yes, the Zarbi look a little shoddy lookin at them now, but I bet on little screens in 1965 they were pretty convincing. The top half actually does look pretty good — it’s the legs which really let them down. And then there’s the Menoptera. They also look half decent, and I love the wings, but you never quite escape the idea that there’s a poor actor stuffed inside there trying their best.
They’ve also attempted to give the surface of Vortis an ‘alien’ appearance by smearing the camera lenses with (reportedly) Vaseline. It’s a decision which has been roundly mocked over the years but I actually think it’s quite clever! So there! I like that they’ve sat down and thought about what they can do to present this as another world, and I’m surprised there aren’t more attempts to do similar to planets in New testament Who, though using more advanced post-production techniques than this.
The problem is that I’m not sure it actually works. There’s a lengthy scene today where Doctor Who deduces where they’ve landed, and the whole thing is spoilt by the fact that William Hartnell’s face is entirely obscured by a particularly thick clump of the Vaseline. Oh dear.
Even the music has gotten in on the act of trying to be otherworldly — The Web Planet eschews a traditional music score and instead presents us with a soundscape by Les Structures Sonorés. It’s another bold move which ends up being the wrong decision. There were a few points today where I thought I’d probably be enjoying things more with a bit of musical accompaniment.
Because that’s the real problem again today — I’m bored watching this. I reckon being boring is the worst crime a Doctor Who story can commit. You can have bad stories and still enjoy watching them. The Twin Dilemma is objectionably a bad story, but I’d rather stick that on to watch with a friend and have a laugh than The Caves of Androzani. Being boring, though… that’s a whole other ball game. We can go anywhere in time and space, and yet I’m sat here checking my watch and wondering how much longer I’ve got to sit here. In fairness, this is the first episode I’ve struggled to finish, and I’m almost a month in, so I think that’s pretty good going…!
2/10
