Bluffer’s Guide to Doctor Who: The Edge of Destruction (Eps 12–13)
Doctor Who does a bottle-episode in an infinite bottle…
Describe The Edge of Destruction in six words:
Invisible attacker hides inside the passengers.
This is… the one where they go mental.
Why was this made: Producer Verity Lambert and her Story Editor, David Whitaker, had a problem. Doctor Who had been commissioned for 13-episodes. More episodes had been commissioned but none of the stories Lambert and Whitaker had organised could fill in a two-episode slot. Ideally, this story would only use the regulars and make use of the expensive TARDIS set. Whitaker ended up writing this story in two days as an existentialist thriller. Richard Martin directed the first episode with Frank Cox directing the second.
First UK broadcast: 8–15 February, 1964
Also known as… Inside the Spaceship
Observations / Things to Say:
- The TARDIS as the Fifth Beatle. If this story didn’t exist as early as it did, anything similar would have been too retroactive.
- Harold Pinter’s works clearly influenced the silences. William Russell plays Ian with Absurdist menace, although he keeps going longer than the others.
- Doctor has a “heart”, singular (But you knew that one)
- “Ship can’t crash. That’s impossible,” says Susan. Clearly, early days in her travelling, then. (And also not true within the episode itself. The episode starts with the TARDIS malfunctioning drastically)
- Real strength of these episodes is the attention to the characters. Barbara especially. The ending scene between Hill and Hartnell is beautifully done.
- Oh, and if you’ve seen An Adventure in Space and Time, Peter Brachacki comes across as an arrogant sod who couldn’t care about Doctor Who. And maybe some of that is true. But reading the DVD Production Subtitles, he had some really inventive ideas for how the TARDIS could work. Fascinating stuff! Worth a look.
Between You and Me
That’s it. A rather uncontroversial episode and blissfully short. The time travellers really do develop here and become more of a team.
In lieu of anything more insightful, below are colour photographs of the TARDIS set from the first two serials. Yes, the gleaming white TARDIS has a mint green console and a blue floor!
Recommend/Further Reading: