Written by Terry Nation | Directed by Richard Martin | Produced by Verity Lambert | Original air date 12/26/64
This, to me, is Doctor Who's first "event" episode. Not that anyone watching this the first time knew that going in (unless they read somewhere that Carole Ann Ford was leaving the show - I have no idea how widely reported that sort of thing was at the time). A lot is going on here - Susan is left on Earth because the Doctor realizes she's a woman now and he can't provide everything she needs. David Whitaker, the script editor for the show, is handing over his position to Dennis Spooner until the last serial of this season. This is important because it's my firm belief that he wrote some of the best scenes of this series so far, including the final scene of this episode.
It all starts with a close up of Ian's crotch with his legs splayed open. It's not the intent of the scene, I'm sure, but the camera lingers right with his crotch centered in the shot as we wait for a trap door to open below. Seriously, a foot or two lower and it wouldn't be so prominent. It's fine, though, he's wearing pants, so it's not like we see anything... sexy. It has to be weird for William Russell to see that scene (whenever he watched it last, anyway) - I'm sure he was quite annoyed with the cameraman for that one.
The Daleks reveal their inspiration when one of them, after being told all the humans must be killed, shouts out "the final solution!" The Daleks being space Nazis gets more explicit as the series goes on. Adorably, when she and Barbara get captured, Jenny has to pull a Dalek by the plunger to direct it where to go, since the operator inside clearly can't see where he's supposed to be going (or missed his cue, or both). Also, the last Dalek to leave the room should see the Doctor hiding just outside the door - his eyestalk is pointed right at him! Hartnell pretends not to notice and plays the scene brilliantly anyway. But we'll get to him in a bit.
Barbara's idea about turning the Robomen against the Daleks works! She and the Doctor yell into the control unit for the Robomen to rebel against the Daleks. Hartnell's Dalek impression is pretty good - Barbara's is terrible though, it's actually pretty funny how bad it is (can't win them all, Jacqueline Hill, though you're batting like .750 in my book). Ian's wood jams the bomb tube, which causes the whole place to explode (I mean actual lumber, here - he propped some up in the bomb loading tube, causing it to jam, blowing the base sky high).
Then we get to the final set of scenes, and they are remarkably well acted by everybody, Hartnell especially. Susan's shoe has a hole in it, and the Doctor says he'll fix it, and that he must check the ship. But he falters as he enters - he's clearly struggling with something, upset by his interaction with Susan. He's steeling himself that this may be the last time he sees her. Susan doesn't know it, but the Doctor knows her feelings for David, and he decides to leave her on Earth. Susan wouldn't have left her grandfather by her own choice, so the Doctor decides for her (wrongly, it could be argued. Still, at least this is set up by the preceding episodes - I choose to believe the Doctor saw Susan and David making out in "The Waking Ally."). "One day, I shall come back," he says to her, via the TARDIS... loudspeaker, or something. She can hear him outside the TARDIS, anyway, somehow. "Yes, I shall come back," he promises, and to date, 53 years and 36 seasons later, he hasn't (yes, he sees her in the Five Doctors, but whatever, that episode is barely coherent). Susan's reaction is pretty grim - she's clearly not very happy about the decision, despite her love for David. Funeral organs play as she walks off screen for the last time, having dropped her TARDIS key, now useless, since the Doctor has dematerialized.
It's all very well done, and I'm glad Susan, the Doctor's only family we've seen to date, got an earned exit. It is a little abrupt, but given what happens to - let me just check the list, here - Vicki, Steven, Dodo, Polly, Ben, Victoria, Liz, Harry, Leela, both Romanas, Nyssa, Peri, Mel, and arguably Ace (since she didn't get an on screen ending), it's pretty dang good (we'll get to them in time, of course, but my point is, all of them had endings that were either hostile to the characters themselves and/or not set up or earned in any way).
And I credit all of that to David Whitaker. I'm finding that I've underrated Terry Nation as a writer, especially in the First Doctor era, but he is not good enough to write the ending we get here. David Whitaker isn't done on Doctor Who - he writes the next serial, in fact - but his time as the guiding voice of the show ends with this episode, and he goes out with a banger. The last scenes are written with a care the show doesn't usually get, so I'd imagine Whitaker had something like it in mind for a while in the lead up to this episode. His best Doctor Who work is in the future, too - he's the writer of my favorite classic series serial, for one (I'll tell you which one that is when we get there). But, hats off to script editor David Whitaker - I haven't talked about you much thus far, but I suspect most of the better scenes we've seen have had you involved in more than just a spellchecker capacity.
"Doctor Who" puns so far: 2 | Tomorrow: "The Powerful Enemy"
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