One fat geek's SUCCESSFUL attempt to regenerate into a not-so-fat geek by watching the entirety of Doctor Who while walking on a treadmill

Psst! It's Still Racism if the Character is a Hero...

May 23 2017
Psst! It's Still Racism if the Character is a Hero...

Don't get me wrong, I still love The Tomb of the Cybermen. But, watching it back-to-back with The Evil of the Daleks really made something leap out at me. Both stories contain a major supporting character who starts out as a baddie (or, more accurately, the lackey of a baddie) and then becomes a hero over the course of the story. That's fine, it's a common character arc. But in both cases, the character is a very large, muscle-bound black man who speaks very little (if at all). In both cases, the character is placed in dangerous proximity to a terrified white woman and must contend with their white male protector. In both cases the character is, if not shirtless, then wearing an open shirt that shows off the pectoral muscles in great detail. In both cases the character hoists up an opponent over their head and then throws them across the room. And in both cases, the character sacrifices his life heroically in the end. I don't doubt that the writers had the best of intentions, but seeing them reach for the Black Brute trope so transparently twice in a row really made me raise my eyebrow.

But other than the casual racism, I quite liked it. Let's talk about that.

The Tomb of the Cybermen - Episodes 3 & 4

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Speaking of two-in-a-row plot points, this story also features for the second time in a row a delusional human who believes that they can bargain with and control the Daleks/Cybermen. This despite being told several times directly to their face by the Daleks/Cybermen that it ain't gonna happen. The cartoonish overacting of both of the human villains should really bother me, but Patrick Troughton's charm wins me over every time in spite of the pantomime. In the back half of the story, there is a continual tilting of power between the Cybermen and the two evil humans, and of course ultimately both humans die after being hoist upon their own petard. The Cybercontroller is violently destroyed, the rest of the Cybermen go back into hibernation, and the Doctor locks everything up and boobie traps the entire tomb so that they will never escape again (or, at least not until six stories later in The Wheel in Space).

This used to be the only complete surviving story from the fifth season, up until a couple of years ago when The Enemy of the World was recovered. I think that is part of why I like it so much despite its flaws -- when it was recovered in 1991 it became the one and only Second Doctor story from Troughton's first two seasons that you could watch in its entirety. The reconstructions and audio recordings just don't do Patrick Troughton's performance justice. There is a delightful moment where he is playing up to the bad guy's ego, and has to surreptitiously wave away Jamie's objection to an obvious lie, and it cracks me up every time. It is those moments that make the story sing, and keep me getting back on the treadmill every morning.

Tomorrow:  The Great Intelligence!

STATS:

Doctor(s): Second
Companion(s): Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield
Episode(s): The Tomb of the Cybermen - Episodes 3 & 4
Steps Walked: 6,175 today, 593,271 total
Distance Walked:  2.96 miles today, 282.49 miles total
Weight: 279.78 lbs (five day moving average), net change -27.14 lbs


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