Rate and Discuss: The Tenth Planet

[SiHart]

From out of the snow they marched. Emotionless, cloth faced giants, marching in time, oblivious to the cold...

The Cybermen are here! The First Doctor is too, ready to meet a new enemy... but will this be the death of him?

What do you think of The Tenth Planet?

[Larry]

just 8/10 it's a bit of a strange one this it's of course a story with huge significance in the history of Doctor Who but the truth is if you take out the regeneration even with the Cybermen it is a pretty dull and slow story. As for the cybermen yes they look ridiculous but the cloth mask faces and bare human hands some how makesthese originals the most scarey of all the Cybermen . Also the musical score used for the Cybermen in this and the next few Cyber stories is for me one of the bests musical scores in both classic and new who.

[Lissa]

It hasn't held up hugely well and the premise of Mondas drifting up to Earth and absorbing energy is very silly indeed but it has a lot of good in it. It suffers because it mostly exists but is missing its last episode which means it's harder to watch/listen to than comparable stories. As an early attempt at the Troughton staple base-under-siege it works pretty well. It's claustrophobic, the tension is palpable and the monsters are quite scary.

I gave it 7/10 as there is nothing particularly wrong with it. Hartnell goes out with a whimper but that's his own illness rather than the story itself.

[Anthony Williams]

I've always rather enjoyed The Tenth Planet. Perhaps it's that it's the closest thing we have to a complete story in Season 4. Perhaps it's that it's the last Hartnell story. Perhaps it's because it's the first Cybermen story.

Whatever it is, I've always found it to be rather magical. Not in a corny post-2005 Who Christmas special way, but in a claustrophobic, early Who way. It feels like it's a new era, and as Lissa rightly says, it comes across as a proto-Troughton-era base-under-siege story.

But there's a lot in this story to like. First, it's something that wasn't really attempted much early in Who - we have a story that has a truly Global feel to it. While it's set at the South Pole, we see action in Geneva, as well as on space ships orbiting Earth. There are accents abound - we hear Americans, Italians and whatever the heck the chap in Geneva is meant to have. Does Classic Who EVER feel this multicultural again before Battlefield!?

Then there are the Cybermen. That gorgeous design that implies very early Cybermen. I love their look - all tubes everywhere, sheet over the face, bare hands. To me, it implies much more of an attempt to convey the notion of the Cyber-suit as a life-support method, rather than the suit of silver/steel that later becomes the norm. To me, the look of these Cybermen is just fantastic, creepy and just how they should look.

Finally, the regeneration... there's nothing that hasn't been said about it by someone else in the past. But it's nice that we still have that scene from episode 4. It's nice that we have it. The theory of the process clearly early in it's development from a production point of view, hence why we see the clothes change, and why no name is yet given to the process.

All in all, this story plods along. If the Cybermen had been some other average monster, and the regeneration hadn't happened here, it wouldn't have been anything to write home about. But the fact is that both were in this story, and thus it's one of the most important stories in our beloved show's history.

I give it a solid 8/10.

[Terry Leptil]

A brilliant story as it's memorable for being the first Cybermen and regeneration story. Such a shame that Episode 4 is missing.

It gets 9/10 from me.

[J.R. Southall]

Love the Cybermen, hate the story. 5/10

(Oh, and did Kit Pedler have any background in science whatsoever?!)

[Rob McCow]

I wish that instead of losing part 4, they'd lost that f***ing boring episode where General Cutlery sends his son into space with the Z Bomb. I might like the story then.

Sent from my LT15i using Tapatalk

[Stuart Wallis]

I 'ate you Cutler!

I'd give it 7/10 rather than 8, because the story does lag around that time. Otherwise, the Cybermen are put to good use, and are used sparingly in order to keep their sinister appearance from being overused - the end of episode one is quite scary! The Doctor's very conspicuous by his absence in part three, but Ben manages to keep things going adequately. Billy's as strong as ever otherwise, though in response to another thread, it was possibly a good time for him to leave, while he was still regarded well professionally by the viewers, and before he became too much of a liability for the production team.

[Nyder]

Now that Pluto has been stripped of its planet status, do we need to re-name this story The Ninth Planet?

[Larry]

I know that really we don't want any episodes to be missing but when yo see the episode 3 which is in truth pretty dull it's just a pity this episode 3 was not the one missing instead of episode 4.

[Stuart Wallis]

Now that Pluto has been stripped of its planet status, do we need to re-name this story The Ninth Planet?

There's always one!

[Dirk Gently]

No Stuart, there's always 8.

[Jason Thompson]

Now that Pluto has been stripped of its planet status, do we need to re-name this story The Ninth Planet?

No. The story is set in 1986, when there were nine officially recognised planets, therefore Mondas is indeed the tenth.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

No. The story is set in 1986, when there were nine officially recognised planets, therefore Mondas is indeed the tenth.

You can always rely on Jason when it comes to Astronomy matters!

[Antony Cox]

You can always rely on Jason when it comes to Astronomy matters!

Apart from certain starfields, when your good self is by far the only authority on the subject...

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

Apart from certain starfields, when your good self is by far the only authority on the subject...

I don't know what you mean?

[SiHart]

I wanted to love this story. It was the very last Doctor Who story i had to see from the original run and i thought it'd a splendid way to go out- a real iconic one.

It's deathly dull. I don't know if it's Derek Martinus' direction giving it a documentary style detachment, or just because the elements aren't quite in place for it to be a Troughton era style base under siege tension building epic or quite what it is... but it doesn't quite come together for me. Great elements but somehow it's less than it should be.

The story itself is rather illogical, and the pathos of the Cybermen that's so great and memorable early in the story goes to pot in the final episode when they start wanting to invade Earth for no readily apparent reason other than to keep the plot going for another episode.

the real magic of this story is the final few minutes- the eerie scenes int he TARDIS control room, with the sitches activating themselves, lights flickering all over William Hartnel before he falls to the floor and his face bleeds and changes into that of Patrick Troughton. It still looks so great now, spooky and otherworldly in a way that an explosion of light and fire from the Doctor's body never will be.

[Jason Thompson]

This story wants to be good. It tries to be good. It should be good. It has some good stuff in it.

Unfortunately it's not all that good.

The sets are somewhat dull, but unfortunately the characters are even more so. The only two characters with any decent personality (the Sergeant and Tito) are killed at the end of episode 1. Then it's some very boring men in a tracking station, and another very boring man in an office in Geneva. Kit Pedler's scientific input stops at the extrpolation of the Cybermen from the then relatively new and newsworthy business of artificial body parts. The attempts at science elsewhere fall very flat. A new planet comes in and its gravity influences a spacecraft in orbit of Earth, but apparently has no effect on anything else. If you really stuck a twin of Earth floating through the solar system the perturbation of the other plents would be clear. It also moves unfeasibly fast, with its first appearance in a telescope being followed very rapidly by its arrival just next door to Earth. The Cybermen's plan in episode 4 a) changes entirely from its original, and b) is even more nonsensical. Mondas burns up entirely very shortly after arriving, so how were they planning to evacuate people to it before then? Never mind the fact that their plan to destroy the Earth to prevent Mondas absorbing too much energy will itself result in a colossal release of energy, surely only hastening Mondas's destruction? And really, they designed an energy suction device without an off switch?

On the other hand, the Cybermen themselves are rather good. I can never decide if the costume is creepy or silly, but the Cybermen themselves are impressive, and they were never this coldly logical again. In the first assault on the tracking station they don't threaten, they don't menace, they just stride in and state what is going on and expect the humans to concur because it's logical to do so. They also allow the humans to keep trying to contact and save the astronauts even though it is impossible, simply because they have no reason to deny them the chance to try. The demonstration of physical strength as the leader breaks the gun is even justified as a demonstration to the humans, as they 'do not seem to take [them] seriously', rather than just being destructive for the heck of it.

There are also some nice little touches in there. Having a black astronaut was ahead of its time, as NASA (Very much in the news at the time, with the Gemini missions in progress) had none.* And speaking of the Gemini missions, viewers at the time may have recognised the footage shown of the astronauts' view out of the window when Zeus 4 begins tumbling as some re-entry footage from a Gemini flight. (Contrary to a number of sources, however, the rocket lifting off at the start is NOT a Gemini rocket, but is in fact a Bluestreak missile, Britain's first and only attempt at our own ICBM.) The people, as dull as most of them are, are very human indeed, to contrast with the Cybermen. The Sergeant starts off by shouting at the TARDIS crew, but does concede and starts addressing the Doctor properly rather than calling him 'Pops' once the Doctor asks him to do so, and is quite chatty with Ben about the moon missions. There are also little touches like him telling an unspeaking soldier he's late, and Dyson's concern for Barclay when the latter begins looking tired as they try to deal with the situation later in the story. The men's reaction to Polly's arrival is a little overdone, however...

And of course there's the final few minutes. A classic moment and a capability of the Doctor's never previously hinted at. One of the best cliffhangers in the whole show. Nowadays of course it stands out as quite unusual, since it is not a nig season finale, nor a huge crisis on a scale never before seen, and nor does it involve any noble self-sacrifice from the Doctor, but still the original, and perhaps one of the best for not being made a big deal of in the preceding episodes.

So a story that should be better than it is, all told.

[Si Hunt]

Somehow the existence of some of the final minutes as cini-clips makes them seem all the more magical! It wouldn't be half as good in crystal clear video tape!

Si.

[Si Hunt]

Jason, do you know if the space footage exists elsewhere for the RT to slot in in better quality?

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

Oh yes, it's available commercially. I have some of it (well, quite a lot of it actually) on my shelf at home! Maybe I should contact the RT. Shame I didn't have it earlier. There's some Apollo footage in The Seeds of Death as well which looks terrible in the episode but is in crystal clear quality on the DVDs I have.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

A very much like the Cybermen's entrance in Episode 2, where we can clearly see them walking in in the background but nobody notices them at all. I bet that's the only "aliens entering the base" moment that's done in such an understated way in the history of television. They'd definitely never do anything like that now, it would be all close-ups and dramatic music and gasping reaction shots.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

7/10 The story itself doesn't really grab.

The Cybermen monologues are brilliant. The voice they are given both human and yet machine.

The Cybermen costumes themselves I'm not sure of. I would prefer the more robotic versions later. I like the idea of the costume, but it just doesn't work. When described in Spare Parts, the idea of it, pretty much as walking mechanised mummies/zombies is horrific.

Sadly we wouldn't see the cyberman man-machine zombie done justice until Q, Who. Oops.

And part 4 when Ben works out the Cybermen's weakness to radiation - really feels like the Doctor should be doing this doesn't it? I know Hartnell wasn't available for all the story cos of illness, do wonder if he originally had a bigger role as written?

[MacNimon]

I'll give this an 8/10 for now. I love this story, warts and all. I don't find it dull or boring in the slightest...most of the time.

However...there's got to be a however, hasn't there? It's a story I can only watch when fully immersed in the era. If I've watched several Hartnells I really enjoy this, but if I've been chopping and changing between Doctors then I can have a bit of a problem...

The final episode in reconstructed form is a bit disconcerting...I don't know if it's because we have the first 3 in their entirety or not, but I find it easier watching entire reconstructed stories than these 3 actual episodes then 1 reconstructed one.

Overall though, I simply love this story and Doctor Who as a series from this point owes so much to this serial...8/10 for now (to be revised when a better version/format of Episode 4 is released)

[MacNimon]

just 8/10 it's a bit of a strange one this it's of course a story with huge significance in the history of Doctor Who but the truth is if you take out the regeneration even with the Cybermen it is a pretty dull and slow story. As for the cybermen yes they look ridiculous but the cloth mask faces and bare human hands some how makesthese originals the most scarey of all the Cybermen . Also the musical score used for the Cybermen in this and the next few Cyber stories is for me one of the bests musical scores in both classic and new who.

And yes, I totally agree with Larry...these Cybermen may look rather ridiculous by todays standards but storywise they may be the most scary version of them all...