"The Ordeal" - Season 1, Episode 10

Written by Terry Nation | Durected by Richard Martin | Produced by Verity Lambert | Original air date 01/25/64


I wonder if this episode is called "The Ordeal" because that's what it feels like to the viewer? This is the first full episode that is basically all filler, where nothing much important happens and we're largely left where we were at the beginning of the episode.


I'll try my best to draw blood from this stone, though. The Daleks, rather than launching a neutron bomb right away, find out that they can't do so for 23 days (they don't have one built, apparently), so instead plan to use their nuclear reactors to flood the planet with radiation... tomorrow. For whatever reason, it can't be done today.


For the group travelling through the caves, there is so much filler. A few minutes is spent on Barbara lowering Gannatus down a hole and screwing it up, but he's fine. A few more minutes are spent on Antodus chickening out and wanting to go back, only to be stopped by a cave-in, and while it looks like he got hurt initially, he's fine. More cave "excitement" later...


The Doctor uses his TARDIS key to short circuit a Dalek device in the city. He tells Susan, in case it breaks, "I can always make another one if necessary," which is interesting since Susan said the keys are very complicated things in an earlier episode - or was that just the lock itself? - and also, do they have spare key materials with them, or would the Doctor have to fashion one out of material he finds on Skaro? We're never told, in any case, and it doesn't seem like they break the TARDIS key anyway. They break the relay or whatever it is, but the Daleks capture them afterwards.


While the Doctor and Susan are being told something the audience already knows (the above bit about the Daleks using their nuclear reactors to radiate the planet), the rest of the episode is spent on Ian's group crossing a gap. It is as boring as it sounds, with such electrifying dialogue as "Rope coming," and "tie it around yourself. Tighter!" and "get as big a run as you can before you jump," all more than once. It is the most boring scene in the show thus far. The last Thal to jump, Antodus, doesn't quite make it, and the episode ends with a literal cliffhanger, as Ian tries not to lose his grip on the rockface and slide down with Antodus to their deaths. This, at least, is interesting, but it should have come at the end of a scene that lasted maybe a minute tops, not what feels like half the damn episode.


This is a tough post, and there will be more like it in the future. Had Terry Nation only had to write six episodes, he might have been okay, with minimum filler, but this episode just drags. Watched separately from the episodes on either side of it, it's not too bad, but watching it like I did the first time, with the entirety of "The Daleks" in one go (as this set of seven episodes is known today), it is the dullest thing imaginable. This is by far the worst single episode of the series thus far. Luckily, tomorrow's episode is the end of "The Daleks," (and is quite a good episode, actually) and we'll be switching stories for a brisk two parter on Wednesday, so that will be nice.


"Doctor Who" puns so far: 2 | Tomorrow: "The Rescue"