First Doctor

Episode 13: Planet of the Giants

/ Kari / Leave a comment

The Dalens Aren’t Robots team returns to the First Doctor and the group that started it all: Susan, Barbara, Ian and the Doctor, plus the ever-beautiful and half-starving TARDIS. 

As it turns out, size DOES matter, but maybe not in the way you’re thinking. Who will hold the idiot ball this time? Listen and find out!

Daleks Aren’t Robots!? is a podcast in which two Whovian friends take two non-Whovians on a deep dive through the show from the very beginning.

Facebook: ​https://www.facebook.com/daleksarentrobots

Twitter: https://twitter.com/daleksrntrobots​

Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8ngosXDOzVLrJe4KIcW8Qg

Theme: Garage – Monplaisir

Podcast Contents Include

Editor’s Note: The following are my original notes for the podcast, slightly edited for readability. They’re very far from the full contents of the pod, though.  – Kari

SUMMARY

The Tardis has a malfunction, with the doors popping open and everyone having to shut them by force. They land and start exploring, finding a bunch of dead giant bugs, including an ant the size of a doberman. They eventually work out they ARE on earth, but shrunk to the size of an inch high. They split up and have to look for each other a couple times.

There are some full-sized humans in this episode. Forrester, Farrow and Smithers. Forrester is a businessman, Farrow a safety inspector and Smithers a scientist working on a new pesticide. Farrow finds the pesticide works but TOO WELL–it kills EVERYTHING, including beneficial bugs like bees and earthworms, and persists in the environment afterward, making it unfeasible as a pesticide. Forrester has been producing the pesticide for a year and will lose everything if it’s not sold, so he kills Farrow, which the Tardis Team sees. Smithers finds out about the murder, but he doesn’t realize the pesticide is bad, so he agrees to help Forrester cover up the murder of Farrow.

This means the Tardis team can’t just ask for help–even if the humans could understand their tiny high pitched voices one of them is a MURDERER and isn’t gonna want witnesses no matter what size they are. They also work out that the pesticide is unworkable–and Barb touches it before she realizes it’s on a piece of grain she’s picking up. Unfortunately she does not tell ANYONE and holds the idiot ball instead. UGH.

The Tardis team tries to call the cops about the murder, using a GIANT TELEPHONE but they can’t be understood with their high pitch. They set up an explosion to burn down the lab, which doesn’t really work but does wound Forrester, just in time for a policeman to come in and arrest him, because he ALSO tried to get away with pretending to be Farrow on the phone even though he sounds nothing like him, AND Smithers has worked out that the pesticide is bad and is determined to stop Farrow anyway.

The team gets back to the Tardis and the Doctor manages to restore them to their original size, which cures the by now VERY ill Barbara because… SCIENCE! I guess. and the Tardis starts to materialize again!

THE TEAM

  1. Barbara gets the worst treatment in this one, and she holds the Idiot Ball. It’s super unfortunate. She touches the poisoned grain, which isn’t unreasonable, but then she doesn’t tell anyone she’s touched it when she finds out it was poisoned. There’s no real reason given for this either, and it sucks. She even faints, although I’m willing to attribute that to getting poisoned rather than being a wimp.
  2. Ian also carries the idiot ball a little bit early on, in that he sees a giant seed thing with a bunch of text including “Norfolk” on it and can’t concede he’s tiny, even when he and Susan find the matchbox. Otherwise he does pretty well, and serves as the muscle and tries to illuminate some of the science.
  3. Poor Ian’s actor when he’s in the matchbox knocking back and forth. It’s hilarious and terribly fake but he’s doing the best he can with what he’s got!
  4. Susan doesn’t have a huge part here but she’s plucky and smart. She catches on to the fact that they’re tiny first. She climbs the drain spout. She does get a bit upset when Ian is picked up in the matchbox, but not to the point that it’s unreasonable.
  5. The Doctor has shown so much character growth here. He gets very snippy at everyone early on, but he apologizes SINCERELY to Barbara without being made to, and he voluntarily opts to look for Ian when he gets taken up in the matchbox.
  6. It is however HILARIOUS when he says he can’t expect sympathy from a murderer. WE’VE BEEN WATCHING THIS SHOW, MY DUDE.
  7. Also the Doctor has a cape now and it’s great.
  8. The Tiny Tardis is freaking adorable. I love that they use the miniature for the Tardis and it looks kind of silly and like it’s a miniature, and then you find out IT IS.

THE GUEST STARS

  1. There’s a cat, and at first I thought that was going to be the main antagonist, but the cat is not. Pretty cat, though.
  2. The plot with the guest stars is absolutely inspired. It adds a lot of complication to the story and gives them another reason not to just ask for help.
  3. Forrester is a murderer, and he’s pretty threatening, but also not very smart, as he assumes he can pretend to be his victim easily.
  4. Farrow is the one who’s been charged with testing the new insecticide, and he finds that it works–but TOO well. It kills EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING. He tells this to Forrester, who says he’ll be RUINED financially if they publicize that the pesticide is a bad one. Farrow won’t budge and says he’ll turn in the report with the truth in it. Forrester shoots Farrow.
  5. Smithers is another scientist who’s absolutely desperate to get the new pesticide out, because it will enable them to feed more people. He doesn’t know that the new pesticide kills ALL the insects and Forrester lies to him about it. Smithers decides rather than allowing Forrester’s murder of Farrow to derail their pesticide, he will help Forrester cover it up so that they can get the pesticide out and feed the world. When he finds out the pesticide is bad he tries to act.
  6. Smithers and Forrester seem like a couple. They stand super close to each other and Forrester is the worst boyfriend.

THE SETTING

  1. The science in this one is ridiiiiiculous so many times. From the pressure on the Tardis shrinking them, to the “fact” that Barbara’s tiny body is “too small” to fight off the insecticide. Also, I don’t think they get bio-accumulation thing quite right–they say the scientist has made the pesticide “everlasting.” rather than pointing out it persists through the food chain (like some real pesticides do, such as DDT).
  2. The setting is glorious, though. Things blown up to giant size are great. Sometimes they use rear projection and sometimes not. The bugs BASICALLY look like the bugs ought to look like. The “giant sink” set is pretty great, and the giant bit of grain is a cute prop.

THE PRODUCTION

  1. I really like the story in this episode. It’s a lot better than “honey I shrunk the tardis crew.” By adding the murderers as a plotline it gives you an added element of danger. The episode isn’t fast-paced but it steadily builds the tension, with a ticking clock in the form of Barb getting poisoned.
  2. How did they do the effects? What was their budget like?
  3. Where does this fit in with DDT/Silent Spring, which basically kills everything AND bio-accumulates?

DALEK SCORE
I really liked this one. It’s slower-paced but the tension keeps building and building.

Sources Include

Episode 3 and 4 Ian Levine Official Reconstruction

Sources: What Did People Think of Doctor Who in 1963?

/ Zach / Leave a comment
Here’s an example of an article written before Doctor Who came out, detailing the setup and the people behind the show. https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/ITV_can_expect_a_jolt_when_the_BBC_launches_its_%27Dr._Who%27
The reaction to JFK’s death led to the first episode of an Unearthly Child being aired again the following weekend. https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Circumstances_were_hardly_favorable_for_the_An_Unearthly_Child_of_the_B.B.C.%27s_space_satellite_Dr._Who
A brief but interesting scientific-minded comment on the first episode of Doctor who, referencing an educational show hosted by Professor Hermann Bondi of E=mc2. https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/High_camp_for_kiddies , https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/cb5a826e73d749e68cd46bd51642f05e
Here’s a rather amusing review from Variety where the writer messes up the relationship between Susan and the Doctor, referring to her as his daughter. This reviewer certainly does not seem impressed by the first episode. https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Dr._Who_(Variety)

A discussion of the very iconic Doctor Who theme and how it was made! Of course it would be decades before Delia Derbyshire would get the public acknowledgement she deserved for her work on the theme. It wouldn’t really get widespread attention till after her death in the early 2000s. https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Verity%27s_tune_is_way_out_of_this_world! , https://www.openculture.com/2016/01/the-fascinating-story-of-how-delia-derbyshire-created-the-original-doctor-who-theme.html

Episode 8: Reign of Terror

/ Kari / Leave a comment

Today, we look at “Reign of Terror,” a Doctor Who story that sees the TARDIS team travel to revolutionary France.  Will they lose their heads?  Will we lose ours? Will we confidently discuss French politics despite not knowing anything much about it? (Yes. Yes we will.)

Daleks Aren’t Robots!? is a podcast in which two Whovian friends take two non-Whovians on a deep dive through the show from the very beginning.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/daleksarentrobots

Twitter: https://twitter.com/daleksrntrobots

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8ngosXDOzVLrJe4KIcW8Qg

Theme: Garage – Monplaisir

Podcast Contents Include

Editor’s Note: The following are my original notes for the podcast, slightly edited for readability. They’re very far from the full contents of the pod, though.  – Kari

THE GUEST STARS

  1. There are only humans in this one, and they’re all French, except for one English spy. They are the most British French people since Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  2. I had a hard time telling some of the characters apart sometimes, and it was harder during the animated parts–this is another one where we’re missing some episodes. In this case the BBC commissioned the missing episodes to be made as cartoons. The animation is good but a little uncanny at times.
  3. I feel like the historicals where they don’t have to work with any specific people might be better so far, because that way they don’t have to work around reality. For example, Robespierre is in this and he had to end up executed, yes, but before that he also had to be badly wounded in the jaw, which was actually significantly gorier than this episode showed, and I can do without that kind of historical accuracy.
  4. There are some important French guys. Jules kinda looks like Miles O’Brien on Star Trek and he is working to rescue aristocrats from the guillotine. One, Leon, is a guy who hits on Barbara and turns out to be a super obvious traitor, meaning he believes in the Revolution. And one, LeMaitre, is an important official with the revolution who seems to be the main antagonist at first but then turns out to be an English spy. His other name, and I am not kidding, is JIM STEPHANIE F***ING STERLING SON. (Editor’s Note: Jim Stephanie came out as nonbinary just after this episode was recorded but before it was released; I’ve edited these notes accordingly but we did not re-record the podcast episode.)

THE TEAM

  1. The Doctor has a LOT of cool moments in this one, as he’s split off from the rest of the team for a lot of it. He finally gets to murder someone, although the guy starts snoring afterwards as if we’re dumb enough to think that people knocked unconscious with a high-velocity shovel would be a. alive afterward, b. snoring and c. totally fine when he wakes up, guys.
  2. The Doctor gets into trouble due to his ego, but then gets out of it with trickery and also a shovel.
  3. The Doctor also gets to pull a con and trick a bunch of people into thinking he’s an important official in the French revolutionary government. This involves wearing an absolutely incredible hat as well as some pretty awesome clothes.
  4. Susan is useless again in this episode, and that is sad. She gets to wear a cute dress, but then she gets sick and doesn’t do much the rest of the time.
  5. Barbara figures out a way to escape a French prison, she gets flirted with by a bad guy, and she’s pretty awesome throughout. Her dress isn’t as cool as it should be and certainly does not measure up to the Doctor’s hat.
  6. Ian meets an English spy and then helps him; he also gets tied up and tortured for a while, which is nice. He does some action stuff. At one point he and Barbara apologize to each other.

THE SETTING

  1. The show really takes a side here against the Revolutionaries, which… I’m not saying that they don’t have a good point, because they beheaded a lot of people and by the time we look in on the story we’re to the point where they’ve started purging their own ranks with the guillotine.
  2. At the same time, we get a lot of nefariousness from the rebels without any recognition of the cause of the revolution–a massive increase in population and unemployed people, plus a massive increase in food prices due to bad harvests. The cost of living increased 62% in just 44 years. Peasants were 80% of the population but owned 35% of the land. Meanwhile, the Crown was having a debt crisis, partly caused by helping the Americans during their revolution.
  3. Like, there was a lot going on and if you starve people to death don’t expect them to be sweet and kind and nice and good when you sit in a massive castle eating fancy food all day.
  4. There’s some dispute that the “traitor” was a bad person, mind you, but it seemed really token to me.
  5. At one point when Susan gets sick they go to a doctor, and the doctor indicates he’s going to bleed her. Fortunately they get arrested again first, but shouldn’t they ALL know not to go to a doctor of this era??
  6. The women’s hair is terrible for the era and no one ever comments on it or suggests they cover up the mess with a hat or a wig.

THE SHOW

  1. I think this one gets bogged down a little bit in its details. If you think about it, it gets hard to remember what happened when and why, meaning that even though things are continually happening it gets fuzzy about why.
  2. It’s also super hard to care about the NPCs, since starving the peasants is wrong and bad, and chopping heads off is also wrong and bad.

I know you guys reviewed Revolution of the Daleks and no spoilers but I have to know: Do the Daleks get a hat like the Doctor’s?

Sources Include

Episode 7: The Sensorites

/ Kari / Leave a comment

Today, we look at “The Sensorites,” a return to space and some new aliens for Doctor Who.  Are they as captivating as the Daleks?  Are they as ridiculous as the Voord?  Will Kari survive this episode without laughing to death?  FIND OUT!

Daleks Aren’t Robots!? is a podcast in which two Whovian friends take two non-Whovians on a deep dive through the show from the very beginning.

Theme: Garage – Monplaisir

What we showed Kari: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cddgvs3yGgg

Check out our YT version for pictures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck7tGXIc3CA

Podcast Contents Include

Editor’s Note: The following are my original notes for the podcast, slightly edited for readability. They’re very far from the full contents of the pod, though.  – Kari

SUMMARY

The crew finds some dead human astronauts from earth in the future, but they turn out to not be dead. Instead they’re being mentally affected and/or mind-controlled by the Sensorites. Some weird stuff happens and then the dumbest looking aliens ever to exist show up. They look like an alien from Mac and Me banged a dufflepud from the Narnia books, and I died laughing.

We had to take a break. I wiped the tears away from my eyes and got a snack and we started the show again and then I saw they were wearing footie pajamas and we had to stop again so I could laugh.

The Sensorites aren’t bad people, they’re afraid of humans and it turns out one of the astronauts had discovered their planet was made from a valuable mineral, molybdenum. Eventually everyone but Barbara ends up hanging out with the Sensorites, who have a problem where a lot of them are dying for no obvious reason, a problem which started when a group of humans arrived 10 years ago.

Barbara comes down and sorts everything out. It turns out some humans who were crazy due to Sensorite mind influence were poisoning the Sensorites, and a Sensorite city administrator trying to murder our team and definitely murdering other Sensorites is caught offscreen in the largest anticlimax since the final book in the Twilight series.

THE GUEST STARS

  1. The Sensorites are absolutely hilarious-looking. They have the features of the Mac and Me aliens, but with an upside-down wig glued to their chins and caterpillars glued around their eyes. They have two plate-like feet and wear soft baby blue footie pajamas.
  2. The Sensorites are utterly nonthreatening. They cannot stand loud noise or even loud THOUGHTS. They cannot see in any kind of dim light. They do not move particularly quickly and are frightened of humans. These are the least scary aliens to have ever existed.
  3. They can do some telepathy stuff, but only with the aid of a silly stethoscope thing they hold up to their heads, which makes them look even funnier.
  4. The astronauts, Carol, John and Maitland, are fine. Maitland exists to be thoroughly English; he probably has an alarm clock that plays the Big Ben chimes, sweats black tea and says pip pip cheerio I say old chap. Carol is the official The Girl and John is her love interest, who when we meet him is crazy due to the Sensorites’ mind control. John is a large ham and he’s fun to watch until his mental issues are solved, whereupon he’s only about half as English as Maitland and only about twice as interesting. AKA he’s real boring.
  5. There are a few Sensorites with personalities as well. The First Elder, the leader, is a compassionate, gentle and cautious person. The Second Elder, his second-in-command, is more willing to believe humans are bad, but also willing to try making peace with them. The City Administrator is less powerful than either, and is an evil vizier type. He ends up murdering the Second Elder. Other Sensorites include a Scientist, who works with the Doctor to figure out what’s killing the Sensorites, and the City Administrator’s flunky.

THE TEAM

  1. This serial is FINALLY good to Susan, who is revealed to have some capability for telepathy and is able to communicate with the Sensorites to some extent. She’s able to get them to trust her because of this.
  2. Susan also has some good conflict and character building with the Doctor, as she argues with him apparently for the first time ever.
  3. If Barbara had been around the whole time this serial would have been a two-parter. She turns up and essentially solves everything except the poisoning. Why isn’t this show called “Barbara Solves Everything”?
  4. Ian looks like Steve Jobs the whole time. Despite this he is not insufferable in this serial, even though he is still overprotective of Barbara who can, as we all recall from Marinus, beat him up.
  5. The Doctor does some science in this episode and figures out that the Sensorites didn’t catch an illness from the humans, but are being poisoned by atropine, or belladonna. For some reason no mention is made of the way this probably affected the affected Sensorites’ eyes–atropine dilates your pupils and makes you sensitive to light. Which is weird because the sensorites are terrified of the DARK, so you would think suddenly WANTING to be in the dark would be a symptom definitely worth mentioning.

THE SETTING

  1. There were a few sets here, and some succeeded more than others. The control room of the human astronauts was cool. It was clear they had very limited sets made for their spaceship and they had to use them in creative ways to make it look like there was a lot there. Their design was distinctive, with stripy walls that gave it a lot of texture and made it look a bit industrial.
  2. The Sensorites have big spacious rooms and curved portals, not a lot of texture. The kind of place someone wearing footie pajamas would build.
  3. There is some attention given to Sensorite society, which has a caste system. Due to their bad eyesight they rely on certain marks of office such as sashes and collars to tell each other apart, which the City Administrator uses to sneak around in the guise of others.
  4. There are some hints about the earth of the future from the human astronauts. There is no longer a London, it’s all Central City.
  5. The Sensorites have some cool-looking guns that kind of look like one of those old-style coiled egg beaters, leaving me wondering if someone in the props department had a fear of kitchen implements.

THE SHOW

  1. I feel like they meant to make this serial more of a commentary on ambition and the way caste systems destroy social mobility and lead to destructive behavior on the part of people who can’t get ahead. However, this commentary wasn’t actually really present much.
  2. At one point the Doctor gets his coat wrecked and it’s replaced by a long cloak instead. I liked the coat better but the cloak looks nice too.
  3. We get some hints about the Doctor and Susan’s homeworld–it’s got orange skies at night and silver leaves on the trees.

Sources Include

Episode 6: The Aztecs

/ Kari / Leave a comment

Today, we look at The Aztecs, a famous serial and Josh’s favorite of the Hartnell era.  Are its awkward brownface and excessively clothed Aztecs dealbreakers, or is all that outweighed by the Doctor’s first love interest, Barbara’s steely determination and Ian’s hilarious chicken outfit?

Daleks Aren’t Robots!? is a podcast in which two Whovian friends take two non-Whovians on a deep dive through the show from the very beginning.

Theme: Garage – Monplaisir

What we showed Kari: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysa7jRW-B7w

Podcast Contents Include

Editor’s Note: The following are my original notes for the podcast, slightly edited for readability. They’re very far from the full contents of the pod, though.  – Kari

SUMMARY

The Tardis lands in an Aztec tomb, and the group can’t get back into the tomb once they leave it because the door shuts. Barbara is mistaken for the reincarnation of Yetaxa, an Aztec god-priest. Luckily, the Aztecs are one of her academic specialties and she can play along and stall for time. Things get political, but fire-free, when Barbara tries to stop human sacrifice, Ian wears a Battle Chicken outfit, and the Doctor gets engaged, but in the end they find a way back into the temple AND the TARDIS, and escape.

GUEST STARS

  1. The Aztecs. There are a lot of them, and many receive some characterization, good or bad or some of each. I have read a little bit about the Aztecs but not a ton, so I don’t know how accurate it all is, but while there is a little bit of smugness about how “civilized” they aren’t compared to the Doctor and his time traveling team, it’s honestly not as bad as I thought it was going to be.
  2. The Doctor gets a LOVE INTEREST! It’s Cameca, an Aztec wise woman who gives good advice to others and knows a lot about botany. She’s very intelligent, pretty, age-appropriate, really keen on him, and while initially it appears he’s just buttering her up to get help back to the TARDIS, he keeps the token she gave him when he leaves. She even manages to get engaged to him, though it’s an accident on his part.
  3. There are two baddies, an evil high priest named Tlotoxl, who I mostly called Evil Priest, and Ixta, a warrior that Evil Priest sets up as Ian’s enemy. Evil Priest is SUPER over the top and just chews every speck of scenery ever. He doesn’t believe Barbara is a reincarnation of Yetaxa, and sees the strangers as political threats to his power. Ixta wants to command the armies instead of Ian.
  4. There’s also a good priest, Autloc, who does believe Barbara is Yetaxa, and even when he’s not sure, he’s generally presented as a decent person. In the end he loses his faith and goes to wander in the woods, which is sad, and it is presented as such.

THE SETTING

  1. The setting is earth! And an actual place in actual history.
  2. There are multiple sets for multiple locations in this episode, and both the sets and the costumes look pretty good for the most part, apart from the hilarious Battle Chicken Ian and the Puma Man outfit Ixta wears.
  3. However, all the outfits include pants, which is hilarious. These are the most clothed Aztecs who have ever existed.
  4. They are also, apparently, all white. Yikes on trikes. >.<
  5. Susan really gets the short end of the stick in this episode. She’s in a tent going to Aztec school for much of the episode, and then imperils the party by not agreeing to an arranged marriage with the next sacrificial victim due to die in a couple days. He honestly didn’t seem that bad, I’m not saying she should have agreed but she didn’t even try to stall for time by asking to think about it or anything. Susan’s not this dumb, show! This is getting frustrating!

THE TEAM

  1. Barbara is the queen of this episode, successfully pretending to be an Aztec priest-goddess.
  2. Not only that but she heads straight for the corpse of Yetaxa to investigate it, identifies where and when they are and lets no one push her around. At one point Evil Priest tries to gatekeep her by asking her about Aztec cosmology but she knows all the answers.
  3. Her motive throughout is preventing the Aztecs from sacrificing people, which for some reason she thinks will stop Cortez from destroying their entire civilization (which is absolutely not correct). She’s really upset when it doesn’t work, because she genuinely loves the culture. Again, a lot less smugness than expected, and they end up not interfering in the indigenous culture (though not from lack of trying).
  4. Ian gets a surprisingly large amount of fighting in this episode, most of which is cheesy and should have the Star Trek fight music playing while it happens. He also gets to wear an INCREDIBLE bird warrior outfit that has feathers everywhere and he looks like an overgrown Pokemon. BATTLE CHICKEN ATTACK! Also Ian can do the Vulcan nerve pinch!
  5. The Doctor gets to woo Cameca, who is presented as pretty wise and daring herself, and he was very flirty. I could ship it, it’s a shame she’s probably not going to come back.
  6. The Doctor also gets at least one comeuppance, when he is deceived into helping Ixta in his fight against Ian, providing some knockout juice to slow Ian down. And at one point he actually DOES apologize to Barbara, a real apology.
  7. But he also turns out to be right in his conflict with Barbara and Ian at the beginning. They CAN’T stop the sacrifices; the societal inertia and religious practices are too much.
  8. Speaking of which, the Doctor is TOTALLY willing to let people be sacrificed in this episode. Zero issues with that, yet again.

THE SHOW

  1. The show is really really reaching already for reasons they can’t get back to the TARDIS. And at the end the TARDIS breaks again. It’s got the same downtime as the transporters on Star Trek, it seems.
  2. They still haven’t fed it. Couldn’t they have gotten a leg or an arm from the Perfect Victim? Surely the Aztecs could spare ONE limb for a hungry time machine!
  3. The Doctor had his first romance on the show, and almost ended up getting married. His eyes almost fell out of his head when he found out he was engaged, but he couldn’t leave Cameca’s ornament behind.

Sources Include