Hello everyone, the Historian here with both the final story wrapup for Season Five and the first “live” wrapup on the new website! Yes, I am writing this merely a week and a half after we actually watched the final episode of “The Wheel in Space.” I’m going to sort of stick to the format I came up with for the “backfill” wrapup posts I’ve been writing. Let me know what you think of it; I’m still not sold on it compared to the more freeform posts of yore, but it does make the posts a bit faster to write!
PRODUCTION NOTES: We almost didn’t get “The Wheel in Space.” At first, Peter Bryant and Derek Sherwin (Producer and Story Editor respectively, more on them as I catch up on the wrapups) tried to talk Terry Nation into allowing a story where his creation, the Daleks, met Kit Pedler’s creation (and Troughton stalwart villain), the Cybermen. Nation, unsurprisingly, refused. (We’d have to wait 38 years for that to happen!) Instead, Sherwin turned to Pedler for a new basic plot, and to David Whitaker to turn the plot into full scripts.
While all of this was going on, the production team found themselves needing to create and cast a new companion as well. Created by Derek Sherwin and named by (first name) Peter Ling (in his still-being-worked-on scripts for “The Mind Robber”–coming in a few months!) and Whitaker (last name). The part was offered to Pauline Collins, who had played almost-companion Samantha Briggs in the Faceless Ones, but she again turned a regular role down. Instead, the role went to Wendy Padbury–who turned down a part in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for it! Because the development of Zoe happened concurrently, but seperately, with the development of the scripts, Sherwin felt the need to tweak the later episodes during production to give Zoe more character, er, development. (Thus my comment during the discussions regarding my suspicion about why some of the later scripts were a bit more…inconsistent than the earlier ones.)
Moving on quickly, the story was directed by Trevor de Vere Cole, who had earlier worked on “The Gunfighters.” Although the story looks well directed, de Vere Cole did not get along with Peter Bryant, who (per some sources) put forward the idea that the director had gone horribly over budget. (In reality, the story had come in under budget.) De Vere Cole would never work on Doctor Who again.
For more production details, as always, see the Brief History of Time (Travel) page,
DOCTOR WHO FIRSTS: We used to keep track of these things back towards the beginning of the Project, and I thought I’d revive this little category for this story. Sure, we get a new companion here–no first there. But we also get the lead-in for the only rerun of a full Doctor Who story (“Evil of the Daleks”) in the 1960s. That’s a first, but it’s not THE first here. I’m referring, of course, to the first time the name “John Smith” is used as a pseudonym for the Doctor! This running gag replaces the earlier, nonsensical “Doctor W”/”Doctor Von Wer,” and its use as a nom de Doctor continues to this day!
PROJECT REPORT: We…well, we liked some of this story. Ok, ok. Here’s the thing. The Cybermen’s plan? A perfect demonstration of something that’s both absolutely logical and completely nonsensical. It’s just so ridiculously convoluted that we literally had to sit there and figure it out, step-by-step, after some episodes. (Well, I knew, but I’d seen a reconstruction of this story before.) The idea that the Cybermen need some kind of radio homing signal in order to attack the Earth is…basically all right. But what would have made far more sense would have been to destroy the Wheel and just send out a cyberbeacon for the invasion fleet (or ship) to home in on. Of course, then there’d be no story–or a very different story. I would love to see Kit Pedler’s original plots to see whether the Cyberplan made more sense.
That being said, the Project was very pleased to see the Cybermen–and especially the Cybermats!–again. I was very pleased that I didn’t give their appearance in episode 2 away ahead of time. We did find a lot to like in this story, from the amazing first episode (more on that anon) to some of the Wheel personnel. The Project especially liked Zoe. It’d be hard to replace Victoria, but Project members (especially those who haven’t seen much, if any of Season Six) really took to our new girl with the eidetic memory.
But what was clear from our discussions was this: The TARDIS Project is getting more than a bit tired of the “base under siege” story. Not that it’s not a great trope, and it’s given us some wonderful stories. But six of the past seven stories have been “bases under siege” of one kind or another…and it’s wearing a bit thin.
Still, even when we’ve had complaints, we all agreed that we had a great time watching this story. Don’t believe me? Check out the original episode posts!
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
A few comments before I close. One is that this is, by far, the best reconstruction I’ve seen from Loose Cannon, no offense intended to “Evil of the Daleks.” The first episode, especially, was simply amazing. The animation of the Servo Robot was astounding. The sheer skill in matching the telesnaps and the soundtrack, and yet still making it so smooth and seamless that it felt like we were watching the real thing was astonishing. Ms. Iz Skinner, the TARDIS Project salutes your amazing animation skills!
To finish, here’s the BBC Episode Guide page.
A Season Wrapup will be coming, but join us this weekend as we dive into Season Six–the last of the Project! Until then, I remain
THE HISTORIAN
