Written by Terry Nation | Directed by John Gorrie | Produced by Verity Lambert | Original air date 04/18/64
Ian, terrified that Barbara is hurt badly, insists they quickly go inside the door behind them to look for her. When they enter, a bright light flashes and an alarm goes off, and after a few seconds, they walk into room where Barbara is. She's not only fine, she's being pampered - she's wearing a new, beautiful dress, she's adorned with exotic jewelry, and she's being served grapes by two women. Turns out the blood got on her travel dial when she freaked out during the teleportation and scratched herself taking it off.
The travelers are being pampered, too, and are given various foods and drinks, all very nice. The Doctor, it turns out, loves pomegranate and truffles, of all things (no mention of fish fingers or custard at this time). The inhabitants of this city live to serve, it appears. Ian is reluctant to eat anything - he wonders what the cost of all this is, saying that nothing comes without a price tag. A wise observation, if not particularly a difficult one to come up with, but he's the only one concerned at this point, so credit to him. A man name Altos enters and explains they can have any wish they want granted ("Here comes the bill," Ian predicts, amusingly, as he enters). Susan wants a really nice dress, and the Doctor wishes for "a laboratory with every conceivable instrument." Has he forgotten about the TARDIS, or does it just not have a lab filled with equipment, yet? Perhaps he hasn't found it, yet, considering how big the interior of the TARDIS really is...
They notice that Altos didn't blink once while he was speaking to them (I immediately wondered if he was related to Tobias Vaughn, but remembered he was just augmented with Cybermen technology, not hypnotized or anything like that. No retcon possible here!). Everyone goes to sleep, and while they're out cold, a woman comes in and places a disc on each of their foreheads. Barbara rolls over and her disc slips off, which isn't the best design, really, for a disc meant to be worn while sleeping. It's not like she violently rolled over, either, just a simple turn of her head and the disc comes tumbling off. Apparently the Doctor, Ian, and Susan, all sleep on their backs all night long, which might be even weirder than the design of the disc that slides right off, but I digress.
While everyone else remains asleep, the same alarm from the beginning of the episode and flashing lights go off, which wakes up Barbara and freaks her out. Scene fades to black, and the Doctor, Ian, and Susan are eating breakfast. Barbara is still sleeping. They note a light burning sensation on their foreheads, but don't make much of it. Susan is given her dress, and wakes Barbara up to show her. We then get a mostly well-directed scene, from Barbara's perspective, in which case Ian, Susan, and the Doctor all look directly into camera as they scold Barbara because she claims everything is run down and is an illusion. My favorite bit is when the Doctor hands her a cup and she slaps it out of his hand and claims "it's filthy!" Ian is upset about this, he doesn't want to upset their hosts. They argue a bit more, and then Altos comes in and takes her away, because he can tell she isn't under the hypnosis. He has to drag her out, since she knows she's in danger, but her friends don't detect anything wrong about the situation. She's able to hide from Altos, who goes to report to his superiors...
...who happen to be literal brains in jars. Amusingly, their eyestalks are glued to the glass domes they're in, which makes it seem they are SUPER excited about everything, despite their mostly drowsy voices. They explain that they're mesmerizing the TARDIS group, but since Barbara has seen through the illusion, she must be killed when she is found. We cut to Barbara, who sees a young woman thrown in to where she is, ostensibly a jail cell (good place to hide, they'll never think to look there!). She recognizes her as the woman who put the discs on their heads (I'm not sure how - Barbara doesn't seem to wake up until after her disc has fallen off, at which point the woman had already left. ...oh, right, Terry Nation wrote this. Though I'm not sure if it's his fault, the director's, or Jacqueline Hill - though I doubt it's hers, she's too good an actress to mess that up). The woman is being punished since Barbara wasn't mesmerized and got away. The woman is still in deep hypnosis, though.
The Doctor is shown his "laboratory," which is an empty room with some dirty cups in it. Since he's mesmerized, though, he thinks it contains the latest scientific instruments, and he even thinks he'll be able to fix the TARDIS so he can presumably control it better. I do love the Doctor and Ian being enthralled at an empty room and a dirty cup - they sell the scene pretty well, and it's pretty funny.
Barbara discovers the woman's name is Sabetha, and she has been sent by Arbitan to collect the keys of Marinus, and also happens to be his daughter. The jar brains indicate she is to be replaced by Susan, who should undergo training immediately. Altos comes to collect Sabetha, and while his back is turned, Barbara tries to escape, but he hears her. He grabs her, but Sabetha breaks something over Altos' head, knocking him out. Barbara thanks her, says she'll come back for her, and leaves. Sabetha lies down for a nap (perfect timing for one of those, Terry Nation figures. If she didn't take a nap, he'd have to write her into the next scene).
Outside, Barbara runs into Ian, and she hugs him, relieved. Ian doesn't seem to recognize her, but does realize she's the one the brains are looking for, so he grabs her and takes her to the brains. The brains order Ian to kill Barbara, and he goes to choke her (Ian has attempted to choke almost all his TARDIS companions by now, which is a bit unsettling), but she breaks his hold, then grabs something off a table and proceeds to smash the jars the brains are in, killing them (if I haven't mentioned it yet, Barbara is my favorite Hartnell companion, even though whatever she's using just quite break the glass, it just seems to kill the brains, somehow). This immediately breaks the spell over everyone.
As everyone meets up, Ian mentions that the citizens are burning the city and they should go (which is the first time the Doctor and his friends - well, just his friend, in this case - brought down the government and sparked a rebellion. In fact, it was done solely by Barbara, and I love her for it. The argument that the Doctor learns to be who he becomes from Ian and Barbara is on full display here). We then get a nice, boring Terry Nation scene in which the Doctor explains he found some more travel dials (and a key of Marinus, probably from the brain room), and Altos and Sabetha are going to go with them since Arbitan sent them originally. Oh, and also, William Hartnell is taking a few weeks off, so his absence is explained by the Doctor going ahead to find the fourth key, while everyone else - including Susan, as she protests - goes to find the second key. Upset, Susan activates her travel dial before the others, and arrives in a forest. It seems to start screaming at her, and she clutches her head and screams for it to stop as we cut to credits.
It's a very odd episode. I love the first half of it - establishing the nature of the illusion they're under is great, and the first person shot forces the TARDIS crew to come off as very creepy, as they look directly at the viewer and make claims that aren't true. I wish John Gorrie's direction made it a little clearer that what Barbara was seeing was a dilapidated, trashed room, but it's hard to tell, besides seeing the dirty cup. Still, though, the regulars carry that scene. The second half is a little less exciting, but isn't bad by any stretch. What strikes me about this episode is that it's a four part Doctor Who episode done in 25 minutes, which, if that was the intention, is a pretty good (gentle) parody of the show very early in its run. I'm not sure if it is (especially considering it's writer, Terry Nation, isn't known for subtlety), but I like to think that's what is going on, as it makes the episode a tad more interesting.
"Doctor Who" puns so far: 2 | Tomorrow: "The Screaming Jungle"
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