An ongoing exploration of Doctor Who one episode at a time, and with The Daleks story concluding in the previous episode it’s on to episode twelve a.k.a. The Edge of Destruction.
Previously on Doctor Who:
An old man named the Doctor, his granddaughter Susan, and Ian & Barbara, two of Susan’s teachers have been traveling through time and space in a machine known as the Tardis. Following their last adventure our heroes head off in the Tardis, when suddenly there’s an explosion and our four heroes are left unconscious.
…and now, The Edge of Destruction.
Barbara is the first to awake, wondering dazed about the control room. She sees Ian unconscious in a chair and recites his name in a questioning manner. Suddenly Susan is awake, looking confusedly at Barbara she says “I know you” and concerned when she sees her grandfather unconscious on the floor, but when she finally sees Ian in the chair she has no idea who he is.
When Ian finally wakes up he asks Barbara “Working late tonight Miss Wright?” then, looking dizzy, asks for a glass of water. When Barbara says Susan has gone to fetch some he asks “Do you mean Susan Forman?”, but while has memory of Susan & Barbara and his association to them he has no idea who the Doctor is.
The Doctor starts mumbling “I can’t take you back Susan, I can’t…”. When Susan returns she is alarmed to see the Tardis doors are open. Ian reasons that the Doctor must have opened them, while Barbara suggests they opened when the Tardis crashed. However Susan tells them the Doctor wouldn’t leave them open and it is impossible for the Tardis to crash, that the doors must have been forced open and something must now be in the ship.
All of a sudden Susan cries in pain and faints. Ian carries her to the adjoining room to lie down and goes to get some water, when he returns Susan is standing there, looking crazed, scissors in hand. She seems to have forgotten who Ian is once again, flips out, and repeatedly stabs a chair before passing out once more.
The Doctor is now conscious, but he has no idea what’s going on where they are. While the Doctor, Ian and Barbara discuss their plan of action, Susan is seen skulking in the background, once again picking up the scissors and running off.
As paranoia begins to set in, the Tardis begins to act strange. While the Doctor tries to scan outside, the outer doors start opening, and the scanner screen shows photos of landscapes the Doctor and Susan have previously visited. The Doctor then tells Ian the Tardis has a memory bank which records their travels, and in the next breath accuses Ian and Barbara of sabotaging the ship so he’ll take them back home.
After a brief argument everybody retires. Some time passes, and the Doctor is seen checking that everyone is asleep and chuckling to himself, he enters the control room and starts fiddling with the controls. Suddenly he hears a sound, a soon as he turns around a pair of hands go around his neck.
ROLL CREDITS
Originally the BBC bigwigs had only commissioned Doctor Who for four episodes, which later became set-up/caveman story An Unearthly Child. Halfway through that story the suits extended it to thirteen episodes, luckily producer Verity Lambert had thought ahead, having a number of stories in the works. Unfortunately the only ones ready were two seven part stories, The Daleks and Marco Polo.
Not wanting to do two historical stories back to back they went with The Daleks for story two, but that still left two episodes to fill. The problem now though was there was no budget, all they had was the Tardis set and the four lead actors. So from desperation inspiration was born, a two-part story set entirely in the Tardis.
The Edge of Destruction does however feature another moment at odds with future Doctor Who lore. While the Doctor is unconscious Ian & Barbara are checking him over and Ian says “Heart seems alright, his breathings regular”, while it is later established in Third Doctor story Spearhead from Space that the Doctor has two hearts.
NEXT EPISODE: The Brink of Disaster