Pharonic Fantasy Theatre: A Not-So-Mini Who Review

Today I do a shorter review for one of my favorite TV shows, Doctor Who. A “Mini-Who-Review,” if you will. This time I’m watching a story from the early days of the show in the sixties, when adventures with Time Lords where broadcast in black-and-white! So come with me back into an age when the girls where groovy, the monsters where made of aluminum foil and racism was perfectly acceptable on television as I review

Television Serial, 1967

Director: Morris Barry

The Story

The Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Jamie, and new companion Victoria land on the planet Telos, home of the feared Cybermen who are believed to have been extinct for hundreds of years. An Earth expedition has also landed on the planet in search of the Cybermen’s lost city. When the Doctor and the Earth expedition join forces and enter the city they find (after a lot of work) the titular Tombs of the Cybermen. Will the Doctor be able to keep this threat from rising again? Or will a traitor (or traitors) in the group’s midst conspire to bring the Cybermen back to life for their own nefarious purposes? Is the sky blue? Do Time Lords regenerate twelve times? Do Doctor Who Girl Companions^™ scream WAY too much?

Review

What I love about Doctor Who is that you can jump into any story and not have to know much about the show as a whole to enjoy it. For those of you who have not seen the show, here’s the basic premise: An alien travels around the universe and has adventures with his human friends. That’s it. The whole setup is so basic it’s brilliant. Unfortunately, the writers of this show wasted this format as often as they took advantage of it. Episode quality on Doctor Who varies wildly, from pure genius to televised garbage. So where does “The Tomb of the Cybermen” fit?

Well, I’m sort of torn. I will say that this serial is definitely not bad, in fact, it’s pretty darn good. I just don’t know if I would put it near the top of the list of best Doctor Who episodes ever made. There are too many flaws keeping this from being an all-time absolute classic, even if it is a very entertaining story. I’m just gonna go through and say what I like and don’t like about “Tomb”.

First, I like the direction. At a few points in the story I felt that the camerawork was almost cinematic, which is refreshing to see on television and British television in the sixties in particular. Kudos to Morris Barry on this. I also like the electronic music (thanks Radiophonics Workshop!) The sets are impressive, and the Cybermen themselves are suitably creepy with a real hint of menace. One thing that the producers of Doctor Who have always known how to do is bring out a sense of danger from a man in a rubber suit.

The story is a mixed bag. On one hand it is genuinely suspenseful in some spots with a real feeling of peril from the titular cyborgs, and it is fun to see the Doctor and the other scientists try to work out the mysteries of the Cybermen’s control room before making their way to the tombs below. On the other hand, too many of the characters do way too many stupid things, like leaving guns lying around when they shouldn’t have thus allowing the villains to pick them up. Now characters in a drama are allowed to be dumb and make mistakes sometimes (God knows I do), but I don’t like it when the stupidity of the characters drives the drama itself. The acting is also mixed. Patrick Troughton puts in a good performance here, and most of the other actors are adequate as well. The best scene is the exchange between the Doctor and Victoria about their families. This is a nice quiet and touching scene, and the series could have used more like it. However, some of the other acting is not so good. Deborah Watling as Victoria screams a lot and stumbles over some of her lines (not to mention goes to sleep in the most unrealistic manner I have ever seen). And the “American” space captain sounds like he practiced his accent by watching Plan 9 From Outer Space.

The worst part of “Tomb of the Cybermen” for me though is the racism and sexism. You would think that the sixties being the Age of the Civil Rights Movement there would be more positive portrayals of non-whites and women on television, but I guess Britain was even further behind in this regard than America. Hell, they even continued with the unabashed racism and sexism into the seventies – just look at the Doctor Who serial “The Talons of Weng Chiang” (a serial I absolutely loathe, detest and despise by the way, and will never review on this blog because I never want to see it again as long as I live). The sexism in the Doctor Who of this time period is pretty self-evident: if a female character isn't a villain then she's completely useless and screams a lot... and remember, even hundreds of years in the future men will insist that women stay out of danger, being, you know, frail little girls and all. The racism from this period is pretty apparent as well. All of the heroes in “Tomb” are not only white but WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) except Jamie (Scottish, but it almost counts as he’s still British) and technically the Doctor (Gallifreyan, but acts awfully English). All of the good-guy scientists are English while the rocket ship crew are all White Americans (with really, really bad “American” accents) of English descent. The villains are: a middle easterner, a German (I think? Klieg sounds like a German name but hell if I know what accent he’s speaking with), and a big & strong, dumb black dude. Yes, you heard me. A Big Scary Black Man who hardly speaks, has limited intelligence when he does and is slavishly loyal to his “mistress.” Progress!

One last thing that bugs me, then I’m done. Whenever anyone dies in this story (and people die, this is Doctor Who after all) everyone else just leaves them laying there. This is especially noticeable at the end of the last episode – I mean, I know it works for a dramatic shot, but come on. No funeral? No burial? Nothing? Wow... y’all are a great bunch of “friends.”

Okay, wow, I guess I lied when I said this would be a “mini-review.” I wrote too much, why does this always happen? Well, to sum up (then I’m done, promise): “Tomb of the Cybermen” is a good Doctor Who episode and worthy of your time but a few serious flaws (mostly stemming from the time in which it was made) keep it from being one of the all-time best Who stories. Still recommended.

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