I think you pretty much nailed it. Funny t think that the miniscule budget given ti the show by the BBC and the incredibly inventiveness of the production team could have been regarded as wasteful. But by all accounts that was the way it was regarded at the time for a little tea time "filler" programme. Personally I love the story. Not least because Carole Anne Ford gets to play a darker version of her character. And I do agree about a small, self-contained set sometimes leading to more intense stories.
The concept of the Tardis being much larger inside than outside, occupying different planes of existence, is ingenious. Being so compact, the Tardis can appear anywhere. An army could fit inside. A commandeered Tardis could appear within a city, during the night, and the army would spill out and capture the city by dawn.
""Why, it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!" "Of course! You see, the TARDIS is dimensionally transcedental." "What does that mean?" "That means that it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!"
@@unfundedopportunities7278 I think Doctor also mentioned upon several occasions that Tardis is Icisimorohic which means link with him telepathaly. Although several times the Master and even Rani have stolen his Tardis
In The Last Battle, the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia, the characters seek refuge inside a stable standing on a hill, but instead of finding themselves inside a small, enclosed space, to their amazement, they have entered what seems impossible - "It seems, then," said Tirian... "that the Stable seen from within and the Stable seen from without are two different places." "Yes," said the Lord Digory. "Its inside is bigger than its outside". The concept of an infinite space occupying a finite object was introduced earlier in the Chronicles when the world of Narnia is discovered inside a wardrobe. It's possible Sydney Newman had read them, and it was this concept of something extraordinary and infinite both in size and possibilities hidden inside an ordinary, mundane object that inspired in him the novel idea of a time machine disguised as a police box.
This was a fantastic video! Thanks, man! I used to fly to the UK to attend Doctor Who cons when it was in hiatus, and loved being with kindred spirits as fans worked to push the Beeb to bring back the show! So many of the people involved with the programme were guests at the cons, and all were wonderful people! Thank you, again!!
That is a fabulous story, I’ve watched it many times. When Doctor Who was entertaining and a bit educational, not trying to ram the director’s and team’s ideas down your throat.
You have rightly identified this story as playing a major role in evolution of Dr Who. It is not one of my favourite stories but it is an important one. Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful insights.
"Sometimes good television doesn't depend on money, it depends on imagination and good people directing, casting and doing the job with talented people. Then you're forgiven a great deal, I think, if sometimes something doesn't look quite on the money." - Elisabeth Sladen
As one of a handful of stories we had taped off tv during the 80’s PBS repeats (and 1 of 3 from the B&W era), my little brother watched this short omnibus many MANY times and is one of my favorite stories - it left me wanting more installments set in and exploring the TARDIS.
I disagree on some minor points but on the whole I think you've nailed it. I can't remember if it was Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams who said, "Ingenuity can make up for a lack of money, but the reverse is not usually the case." I love the earliest episodes for their sheer conviction. By Tom Baker's era there was too much laughing at itself, but in the early days I could believe they really were on Skaro, they really were trapped in prehistory with little prospect of getting home, or the time ship really was an eerie haunted castle.
After watching dr who all my life it was amazing to see early stories and articulate and animated Daleks. Every coat of paint made them heavier and more crap to move. Plus the dancer operators got older
Time, budget and resource constraints are faced by every amateur film makers and the results often are much more creative. Having everything at your disposal doesn't guarantee a good show. What so many of us enjoy in Doctor Who nis what they attempted to do rather than how it actually looked when complete.
Rumour has it that first Doctor Who you see turns out being your favorite. John Pertwee was first one I saw, yet my favorite always Tom Baker.As always it was more about writing and storyline which helps or hurt the series
I remember just how badly the country was hit with "Dalekmania" during the broadcast of the 2nd story. The show had become a runaway success, appealing to both adults and children. I don't think cancellation after 13 episodes was ever a serious prospect.
So confusing today with all the correctness and affirmation. Here we have female let production, tiny. budget, balanced casting. Equality before it became political. AND wonderful writing.
Part way into your opening I guessed which it would be, this really surprised me because it was so character driven, and that wasn't typical back then for this type of show. It's also a fairly adult theme. Aside from the Unearthly Child it's the best written Hartnell episodes of those I've seen.
Also, I absolutely adore the bleak white & black setting of E-Space in Warrior's Gate. I love the ambition of it & the chromakey overhead projector look of it. Somehow it works so very well.
Ooh, thank you for this. Now this story sounds really intense & I bloody love the sound of that. Also, I love it when you get more than a glimpse into the other rooms in the TARDIS too. Does The Edge of Destruction still exist?
Yes the edge of destruction was the start of the drwho companion trope . The new companions feel like last place but get excepted as co-pilots when they talk to the tardis and realise the Rhetoric of history.
It's laughable now, but my friend and I were 9 year olds, left home alone for an hour for the first few times to watch the first series each. week and we were usually too terrified to sleep after!
This is great, but some enthusiasm or inflection may improve your presentation. Great content, but the narration is a bit of a monotone snoozefest. Sounds like someone reading their masters thesis.
I cannot understand how The Edge of Destruction is so undervalued. David Whitaker wrote a two episode classic. If my mind goes back to Hartnell, then these two are the very first that come to mind. Also The Web Planet - and that was the first novelization that I picked up in a newsagent at Newport Pagnell in 1971 for 25p. In my imagination, I would love to see TWP reproduced with the production values of the Henson Creature Workshop. The production team did brilliantly with what they could afford and the techniques of the time. A truly imaginative effort.
I’d love to have Dr. Who version that is a futuristic British family who travels through time more than space and we could see history through his eyes.
This is the most iconoclastic and daring argument as it seems to be lending equal status for the serial to that of The Dalek serial. 💣💥 Btw (not totally related or unrelated) you could probably do a similar video about how "Underworld" (and "Meglos") influenced 3 decades of technical TV/Film production - particularly Hollywood/George Lucas' use of "Green Screen" - apparently according to the original DVD Extras the specific gadgetry (rather than broad idea not using actual scenery) was either developed experimentally for the serials or were presently being perfected by the BBC tech-heads 20 years ahead of Hollywood.
I always wanted the TARDIS to be huge and beyond sets a cathedral a leisure centre a restaurant a gothic library que gardens as a arboretum, a huge laboratory anything ypu can imagine with cgi and outside filming should be easy. When you have the right people who care enough the program was ingenious outside problems like strikes did not help and comedy writer's Horror of fang rock was a good example to
I've been a lifelong fan of Dr Who. But sometimes I wonder why. Frequently these days I'm left thinking "well. that was a let down" The great episodes are where they introduce new people/aliens then we slowly realise all is not so great. Or we just experience a different culture/society. The crap ones are where they go for horror, we spend the whole program watching actors running around screaming. Sadly that seems to be more the norm over the past decade. It is about time they got some new writers with good imagination on what could be.
Another very low budget story was The Celestial Toymaker - even the Doctor himself only appeared in the first and last episodes. Sadly, I think, only the fourth episode survived.
@@waynetarry9043 Doctor Who's been 'woke' whatever the fuck that means these days, since it did a whole 4 episode story explaining the real savages were the self proclaimed superior race/species (The Savages, 1966) , Dr Who's been woke since an actual socialist/marxist/communist wrote stories that were anti-violence/anti-war, pro commune living hippies, pro-left wing protest & direct action/anti-instrustral sabotage & anti-corrupt, polluting corporations - one even includes Pertwee in drag - and how well meaning liberals get exploited by people wanting to recreate the far-right ideal of the imaginary glory age (Malcolm Hulke around the early - mid 70s) . Dr Who's been woke since the late 80s equivalent of showrunner wanted to use the programme to overthrow Thatcher and had stories directly attacking her and what she stood for and explicitly feature the direct & indirect effects racism has and how our tiny seemingless meaningless everyday choices can have massive negative consciences for other people, even the story revisiting the year the show started called out racist discrimination as wrong.
90 minute Tom Baker "movies" dabbled in first video backgrounds. These were really cheesy but ground breaking. Series has always benefitted financially from employing Shakesperian stage actors. Greenscreen CGI has really opened the universes since. I got turned on to Tom Baker PBS reruns in 1983 (as a prank tease, because I looked like him--girlfriend knitted me the 20 foot sweater) Loved it, "pass the bong." Yes, in the the old B&W original first season earliest episodes the Doctor was cold and officious. A dozen doctors to watch. Years pass... Then someone told me they were making a new series with A SPICE GIRL?
The Edge of Destruction is one of my favourites, I love stories that are just set in the TARDIS or about her. Logopolis, The Doctor’s Wife and Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS come to mind as well. There’s so much a writer could explore with the Doctor’s blue box but they never really do. Pre-1st Doctor, post-Gallifrey/pre-AUC, more rooms, the TARDIS is taken over again but can’t break free, the Chameleon Circut gets fixed, other TARDISes like the Master’s and other Time Lords, she explores what’s it like to be human etc.
If it wasn’t for Nu Who, the programme you love wouldn’t be fondly remembered or a hit. It would just be laughed at and fade away so all you man children owe Russell, Steven and Chris along with Eccleston, Tennant, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker, Martin and Gatwa + all the other writers and actors a thank you. I hardly like Nu Who myself but I’m not one who cries on the internet all because for whatever reason you are.
The early version of the Doctor was not a clear cut character, and definitely not your normal 'hero' character and was not very likeable. at least that is how I remember it.
As I remember it he was certainly a bit of a grumpy old man, but I always liked him, For me the first four doctors will always be the best probably because that's who I grew up with.
@@ralphhathaway-coley5460 The early Dr Who years with William Hartnell were directed more towards youth audience. The Doctor and Susan, his grandfather were mostly traveling through Earth history with Susan"s teachers that boarded Tardis by accident.
@@KevinRudd-w8s That is probably a better description, I agree he was the best doctor. He did bring that air of the Drill Sergeant/otherness that William Hartnell did so well.
I think you’ve forgotten the cave man episodes immediately after the in earthly child. I do remember the edge of destruction but only that I watched it and didn’t really understand it. My excuse. I was 10
As one of a handful of stories we had taped off tv during the 80’s PBS repeats (and 1 of 3 from the B&W era), my little brother watched this short omnibus many MANY times and is one of my favorite stories - it left me wanting more installments set in and exploring the TARDIS.
Back in the day when the BBC was tight on cash but oozed quality, because those involved cared.
I think you pretty much nailed it. Funny t think that the miniscule budget given ti the show by the BBC and the incredibly inventiveness of the production team could have been regarded as wasteful. But by all accounts that was the way it was regarded at the time for a little tea time "filler" programme. Personally I love the story. Not least because Carole Anne Ford gets to play a darker version of her character. And I do agree about a small, self-contained set sometimes leading to more intense stories.
The concept of the Tardis being much larger inside than outside, occupying different planes of existence, is ingenious.
Being so compact, the Tardis can appear anywhere.
An army could fit inside. A commandeered Tardis could appear within a city, during the night, and the army would spill out and capture the city by dawn.
""Why, it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!"
"Of course! You see, the TARDIS is dimensionally transcedental."
"What does that mean?"
"That means that it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!"
@@unfundedopportunities7278 I think Doctor also mentioned upon several occasions that Tardis is Icisimorohic which means link with him telepathaly. Although several times the Master and even Rani have stolen his Tardis
In The Last Battle, the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia, the characters seek refuge inside a stable standing on a hill, but instead of finding themselves inside a small, enclosed space, to their amazement, they have entered what seems impossible -
"It seems, then," said Tirian... "that the Stable seen from within and the Stable seen from without are two different places." "Yes," said the Lord Digory. "Its inside is bigger than its outside".
The concept of an infinite space occupying a finite object was introduced earlier in the Chronicles when the world of Narnia is discovered inside a wardrobe. It's possible Sydney Newman had read them, and it was this concept of something extraordinary and infinite both in size and possibilities hidden inside an ordinary, mundane object that inspired in him the novel idea of a time machine disguised as a police box.
It's smaller on the outside than the inside!
This was a fantastic video! Thanks, man! I used to fly to the UK to attend Doctor Who cons when it was in hiatus, and loved being with kindred spirits as fans worked to push the Beeb to bring back the show! So many of the people involved with the programme were guests at the cons, and all were wonderful people! Thank you, again!!
It got the production team through a difficult time. Job done, well done 👍
That is a fabulous story, I’ve watched it many times. When Doctor Who was entertaining and a bit educational, not trying to ram the director’s and team’s ideas down your throat.
You have rightly identified this story as playing a major role in evolution of Dr Who. It is not one of my favourite stories but it is an important one.
Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful insights.
An excellent analysis! I will go back and re-watch Edge of Destruction, havn't seen it for some years now 🤕👍
"Sometimes good television doesn't depend on money, it depends on imagination and good people directing, casting and doing the job with talented people. Then you're forgiven a great deal, I think, if sometimes something doesn't look quite on the money." - Elisabeth Sladen
It's always been one of my favourite Hartnell era episodes.
@@sbatty65227 I just couldn't get into William Hartnell, he always looks like reading teleprompter. his facial expressions rarely changes
@@PaulHFleming I had no problems with Hartnell.
Perhaps you had to be there at the time.
I've always really liked "The Edge Of Destruction".
As one of a handful of stories we had taped off tv during the 80’s PBS repeats (and 1 of 3 from the B&W era), my little brother watched this short omnibus many MANY times and is one of my favorite stories - it left me wanting more installments set in and exploring the TARDIS.
If you still have the recordings you should check whether they are 'missing'.
I disagree on some minor points but on the whole I think you've nailed it. I can't remember if it was Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams who said, "Ingenuity can make up for a lack of money, but the reverse is not usually the case." I love the earliest episodes for their sheer conviction. By Tom Baker's era there was too much laughing at itself, but in the early days I could believe they really were on Skaro, they really were trapped in prehistory with little prospect of getting home, or the time ship really was an eerie haunted castle.
Douglas Adam script editor took over after the horror of Philip hinchcliffe
@@paulashe61 Yes I know. I don’t think the quote was related to Doctor Who.
Cardboard is a major building material, out in the galaxy...
After watching dr who all my life it was amazing to see early stories and articulate and animated Daleks. Every coat of paint made them heavier and more crap to move. Plus the dancer operators got older
Time, budget and resource constraints are faced by every amateur film makers and the results often are much more creative. Having everything at your disposal doesn't guarantee a good show. What so many of us enjoy in Doctor Who nis what they attempted to do rather than how it actually looked when complete.
I like the character development. Jodie's "fam" could have done with something like that early on.
Rumour has it that first Doctor Who you see turns out being your favorite. John Pertwee was first one I saw, yet my favorite always Tom Baker.As always it was more about writing and storyline which helps or hurt the series
I remember just how badly the country was hit with "Dalekmania" during the broadcast of the 2nd story. The show had become a runaway success, appealing to both adults and children. I don't think cancellation after 13 episodes was ever a serious prospect.
So confusing today with all the correctness and affirmation. Here we have female let production, tiny. budget, balanced casting. Equality before it became political. AND wonderful writing.
Part way into your opening I guessed which it would be, this really surprised me because it was so character driven, and that wasn't typical back then for this type of show. It's also a fairly adult theme. Aside from the Unearthly Child it's the best written Hartnell episodes of those I've seen.
Also, I absolutely adore the bleak white & black setting of E-Space in Warrior's Gate. I love the ambition of it & the chromakey overhead projector look of it. Somehow it works so very well.
The first and best Doctor. William Hartnell.
100% agree!
Sure. Edge of Destruction was a "bottle episode" before that term had been created.
Overall I think that you have given a very good argument for how undervalued it was.
Classic Who = Great story telling with limited funds.
Recent New Who = Rubbish, made with practically unlimited funds (by comparison)
Touch that Grass... ffs.
Excellent review!
Thanks
Ooh, thank you for this. Now this story sounds really intense & I bloody love the sound of that. Also, I love it when you get more than a glimpse into the other rooms in the TARDIS too. Does The Edge of Destruction still exist?
Yes. It's on DVD too.
@@TheWatcherOnWho Oh that's fantastic, thanks again. Great channel btw. I've subscribed 👍😁
@@StevieZala thanks
Yes the edge of destruction was the start of the drwho companion trope . The new companions feel like last place but get excepted as co-pilots when they talk to the tardis and realise the Rhetoric of history.
Awesome commentary...brilliant
Thank you
It's laughable now, but my friend and I were 9 year olds, left home alone for an hour for the first few times to watch the first series each. week and we were usually too terrified to sleep after!
This is great, but some enthusiasm or inflection may improve your presentation. Great content, but the narration is a bit of a monotone snoozefest. Sounds like someone reading their masters thesis.
I was just thinking 'give this man a modulator, he could voice a Dalek'
I couldn't finish the video, though.
I cannot understand how The Edge of Destruction is so undervalued. David Whitaker wrote a two episode classic. If my mind goes back to Hartnell, then these two are the very first that come to mind. Also The Web Planet - and that was the first novelization that I picked up in a newsagent at Newport Pagnell in 1971 for 25p. In my imagination, I would love to see TWP reproduced with the production values of the Henson Creature Workshop. The production team did brilliantly with what they could afford and the techniques of the time. A truly imaginative effort.
I'm not sure I would like to see The Web Planet re-made. Especially as it exists in full anyway.
@@tooleyheadbang4239 I think, realistically speaking, this is a fantasy recreation anyway. It's good to have it existing in mind.
I’d love to have Dr. Who version that is a futuristic British family who travels through time more than space and we could see history through his eyes.
You know, people DOG this story badly, but I love it. It's one of my personal faves. ART REQUIRES OBSTACLES!
This is the most iconoclastic and daring argument as it seems to be lending equal status for the serial to that of The Dalek serial. 💣💥
Btw (not totally related or unrelated) you could probably do a similar video about how "Underworld" (and "Meglos") influenced 3 decades of technical TV/Film production - particularly Hollywood/George Lucas' use of "Green Screen" - apparently according to the original DVD Extras the specific gadgetry (rather than broad idea not using actual scenery) was either developed experimentally for the serials or were presently being perfected by the BBC tech-heads 20 years ahead of Hollywood.
15th doctor standing on a land mine: I seem to recall the same happening many years ago in a Doctor Who episode. Does anyone else remember?
Genesis Of The Daleks
I wonder how the actors playing Barbara, Susan and David felt about the show's precarious existence and what that meant for their careers.
Oh how FAR the Doctor has fallen!
I always wanted the TARDIS to be huge and beyond sets a cathedral a leisure centre a restaurant a gothic library que gardens as a arboretum, a huge laboratory anything ypu can imagine with cgi and outside filming should be easy.
When you have the right people who care enough the program was ingenious outside problems like strikes did not help and comedy writer's
Horror of fang rock was a good example to
I've been a lifelong fan of Dr Who. But sometimes I wonder why. Frequently these days I'm left thinking "well. that was a let down" The great episodes are where they introduce new people/aliens then we slowly realise all is not so great. Or we just experience a different culture/society. The crap ones are where they go for horror, we spend the whole program watching actors running around screaming.
Sadly that seems to be more the norm over the past decade. It is about time they got some new writers with good imagination on what could be.
Another very low budget story was The Celestial Toymaker - even the Doctor himself only appeared in the first and last episodes. Sadly, I think, only the fourth episode survived.
Well researched and written unfortunately the presentation makes it painful to complete viewing
My apologies if you don't find my style engaging enough.
And now it's been destroyed, RIP Doctor
it has turned into the biggest monster ever ( WOKE ) !
@@waynetarry9043 Doctor Who's been 'woke' whatever the fuck that means these days, since it did a whole 4 episode story explaining the real savages were the self proclaimed superior race/species (The Savages, 1966) , Dr Who's been woke since an actual socialist/marxist/communist wrote stories that were anti-violence/anti-war, pro commune living hippies, pro-left wing protest & direct action/anti-instrustral sabotage & anti-corrupt, polluting corporations - one even includes Pertwee in drag - and how well meaning liberals get exploited by people wanting to recreate the far-right ideal of the imaginary glory age (Malcolm Hulke around the early - mid 70s) . Dr Who's been woke since the late 80s equivalent of showrunner wanted to use the programme to overthrow Thatcher and had stories directly attacking her and what she stood for and explicitly feature the direct & indirect effects racism has and how our tiny seemingless meaningless everyday choices can have massive negative consciences for other people, even the story revisiting the year the show started called out racist discrimination as wrong.
@@waynetarry9043 Can you define "WOKE", please?
Give specific examples, and why they offend you.
It’s gone as we said it would from lack of creativity Disney suits destroy another universe.
It should be part of the story
90 minute Tom Baker "movies" dabbled in first video backgrounds. These were really cheesy but ground breaking.
Series has always benefitted financially from employing Shakesperian stage actors.
Greenscreen CGI has really opened the universes since. I got turned on to Tom Baker PBS reruns in 1983 (as a prank tease, because I looked like him--girlfriend knitted me the 20 foot sweater) Loved it, "pass the bong."
Yes, in the the old B&W original first season earliest episodes the Doctor was cold and officious.
A dozen doctors to watch. Years pass...
Then someone told me they were making a new series with A SPICE GIRL?
I've got it on dvd
The Edge of Destruction is one of my favourites, I love stories that are just set in the TARDIS or about her. Logopolis, The Doctor’s Wife and Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS come to mind as well. There’s so much a writer could explore with the Doctor’s blue box but they never really do. Pre-1st Doctor, post-Gallifrey/pre-AUC, more rooms, the TARDIS is taken over again but can’t break free, the Chameleon Circut gets fixed, other TARDISes like the Master’s and other Time Lords, she explores what’s it like to be human etc.
Apart from referencing the abomination that is Nu-Hoo, good video.
If it wasn’t for Nu Who, the programme you love wouldn’t be fondly remembered or a hit. It would just be laughed at and fade away so all you man children owe Russell, Steven and Chris along with Eccleston, Tennant, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker, Martin and Gatwa + all the other writers and actors a thank you. I hardly like Nu Who myself but I’m not one who cries on the internet all because for whatever reason you are.
@@tokublwhovian Triggered, much? 🤣
A true and pure Whovian knows and never forgets.
The early version of the Doctor was not a clear cut character, and definitely not your normal 'hero' character and was not very likeable. at least that is how I remember it.
As I remember it he was certainly a bit of a grumpy old man, but I always liked him, For me the first four doctors will always be the best probably because that's who I grew up with.
@@ralphhathaway-coley5460 The early Dr Who years with William Hartnell were directed more towards youth audience. The Doctor and Susan, his grandfather were mostly traveling through Earth history
with Susan"s teachers that boarded Tardis by accident.
@@KevinRudd-w8s That is probably a better description, I agree he was the best doctor. He did bring that air of the Drill Sergeant/otherness that William Hartnell did so well.
Would be possible for a review of 1960s Dr Who movies featuring Peter Cushing?
Something I can look into.
What was this about an episode in 2024? The series ended Christmas Day 2015...
I think you’ve forgotten the cave man episodes immediately after the in earthly child. I do remember the edge of destruction but only that I watched it and didn’t really understand it. My excuse. I was 10
Cavemen episodes are part of the An Unearthly Child serial. 4 episodes in total.
@@TheWatcherOnWho oh never knew that. Wow
As one of a handful of stories we had taped off tv during the 80’s PBS repeats (and 1 of 3 from the B&W era), my little brother watched this short omnibus many MANY times and is one of my favorite stories - it left me wanting more installments set in and exploring the TARDIS.