I've always felt very strongly that the early Pertwee (3rd Doctor) adventures were the very best that Dr. Who has to offer. They had the best writers, the best production values, and the cast with the Brigadeer and UNIT was superb and as Jon Pertwee often remarked, it is somewhat more terrifing when the menace comes to earth.
the plot is classic doctor who for the time, with the storyline revolving around a misunderstanding and humans who are usually the bad guys in the end. It is hard to belive that this one is one of the last videos to be released, but I'm glad it's finally here!!!!!
The Doctor later discovers a high radiation reading from the capsule, which indicates that the astronauts should've been dead, but upon further investigation, finds a log discovering a 2 million rad count, leading him to make the opening quote of my review. His attempts to find the astronauts is met with delay, espionage, sabotage, coverups, a hijacking which the Doctor foils in a very clever way, astonishing the Brigadier, and eventually, murder, in the Space Centre. As the story progresses, more people are discovered to be part of the conspiracy, be it ordinary thugs, scientists, and even politicians.
Apart from UNIT, the only person who seems to accept his help is Dr. Cornish, the head of the Space Centre. Then there's General Carrington, head of the military Security Service, whose motives from the get-go are very suspect, even though he tells the Doctor that the astronauts were suffering from a self-sustaining, highly contagious radiation, and he had national security in his interest. However, the concept of moral duty comes into question, as depending on one's frame of mind, moral duty can mean whatever one wants it to mean.
Episode 5 features the first appearance of John Levene (Sergeant Benton) in the Pertwee era, having made his appearance in The Invasion (1968). Caroline John is still great as Liz, but I doubt if real Cambridge Ph D graduates wear miniskirts that short. Two Who guest star alumni include John Abineri (Carrington) later to come out in Death Of The Daleks (1974), and Cyril (Dr. Lennox), Viner in Tomb Of The Cybermen (1967), Dr. Clegg in Planet Of The Spiders (1974), and the Archimandrite in The Androids Of Tara (1978). Michael Wisher (John Wakefield) came out in many Who stories, including Davros (Genesis Of The Daleks).
The times play a big part in this story. The image of the Recovery 7 probe docking with the Mars Probe not only brings reminders of Stanley Kubrick's 2001 (1968) but also David Bowie's "Space Oddity" (1969). I half-expected to hear "Ground control to Major Tom." And John Wakefield's TV narration gives a sense of the impact of TV, as this story was made a year after the first landing on the moon.
Before episode 1, there is the original trailer that was shown on BBC1 for this story. While this is playing, a message scrolling at the bottom explains that although made in colour, only Episode 1 was maintained in its original form--the other copies being accidentally junked in colour, survived as b&w film recordings, with incomplete colour recordings recovered from the U.S. in order to restore the story to colour. Hence there is a mix of colour and b&w, and as the brightness in restored segments plays havoc with the image's visibility, one can see the decision to leave 81 of its 171 minutes in b&w. So, here's a rundown:
Episode 1-all in original colourEpisode 2-first few minutes in colour, then b&w all the wayEpisode 3-about 10 minutes in colour, rest b&wEpisode 4-all in b&wEpisode 5-restored colourEpisode 6-b&w for few minutes, colour for couple minutes, b&w for couple minutes, colour for restEpisode 7-first third in colour, second third in b&w, last third in colour
Yes, it may be an episode too long and contains some continuity errors, but what carries this story is the espionage and suspense, especially as the action goes into a continuous plot W, the Doctor gains the upper hand, only to end up one step behind when someone with information is killed or goes missing, and etc. This is one of those thoughtful stories that requires repeated viewings on a lazy weekend.
