So yeah, I've kind of been looking forward to this story. To my mind, the first Doctor has three truly landmark stories: An Unearthly Child, The Daleks, and The Tenth Planet. There are others I enjoy more, such as Marco Polo, The Aztecs, or The Dalek Invasion of Earth, but those first three are the ones which are foundational to Doctor Who. The first story, because of course. The second story, because however sick I may be of the Daleks there is no denying that without them there would be no Doctor Who at all. And today's story, because not only does it introduce the second most popular ongoing villains (in my mind it goes Daleks, Cybermen, The Master) but it also introduces the concept of regeneration. Although, it is worth noting that regeneration doesn't get a name for many more years, not until the Third Doctor reaches his end on the Planet of the Spiders. Of course I have been looking forward to today's story, how could I not be?

Let's talk about that.

The Tenth Planet - Episodes 1 & 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

The story is set in the near future of 1986 (the year I graduated high school!), in which the International Space Command is just sending up a new manned mission into orbit. The TARDIS materializes just outside the Antarctic mission control base called Snowcap, just in time for the new space mission to go terribly wrong. A new planet, Mondas, is rapidly approaching the earth and along with it comes an advance invasion force.

The Cybermen are like nothing else seen on Doctor Who to date. Their home planet was a twin of the Earth, but ages ago their advanced science allowed them to turn Mondas into a spaceship of sorts, traveling the universe while they upgraded themselves piece-by-piece to become much more machine than human. Among the casualties of their relentless upgrades was their ability to feel any emotions. Where the Daleks are all Ego and Id, rolling around in there pepperpot tanks and screaming their superiority, the Cybermen are coldly ruthless and logical. They upgrade and assimilate, and follow the most logically successful course in any situation with no regard for morality or empathy.

The moment when the first squad of Cybermen come striding into view through the blur of the snow at the end of the first episode is just chilling (no pun intended). They are able to quickly dominate the base, taking full control and laying out their plan to drain all of the energy from the Earth. Some quick thinking by Ben, Man of Action, leads to the defeat of the initial squad of Cybermen. Unfortunately, the final shot of the second episode is a fleet of hundreds of Cybermen ships headed to Earth. Humanity is doomed!

There is just so much that is good in this story. The writing and acting are superb all around, with a solid pacing that inspires dread at every turn. Sure, the Cybermen costumes might look a little dodgy fifty years later, and yeah that one Cyberman definitely had his headpiece held together with gaffer tape, but that doesn't make them any less effective. Writer Kit Pedler was initially hired based on his idea for The War Machines, and to bring a harder edge of science to the series. The Tenth Planet has that in spades.

I have already mentioned that I am more than ready to say goodbye to William Hartnell as the Doctor. Well, as it turns out he called in sick for the week of filming for the third episode. As such, he is sidelined right away in tomorrow's viewing, with most of his dialog and action being offloaded to Ben. On top of that, the fourth episode is entirely missing from the archives aside from the regeneration scene. This means that, as of this morning, I really have seen the last of Hartnell aside from his limited guest appearance in the tenth anniversary episode The Three Doctors. I am so ready to get on with the era of the Second Doctor.

STATS:

Doctor(s): First
Companion(s): Ben Jackson, Polly Wright
Episode(s): The Tenth Planet - Episodes 1 & 2
Steps Walked: 6,815 today, 453,688 total
Distance Walked:  3.39 miles today, 212.83 miles total
Weight: 287.08 lbs (five day moving average), net change -20.22 lbs