Miles and Wood make the point about The Edge of Destruction that the twist isn’t that a switch was stuck, the twist is that the TARDIS was communicating. I just watched it for the first time and was struck by an even more specific version of their observation: because of how the switch ends up being stuck, the Ship thinks it’s under attack. So the first thing it does is try to drive everyone on the ship mad so they’ll take their fingers off the switch. And then when that doesn’t work it tries to communicate. Or in other words, first it lashes out in pain, then it tries to reason through the situation. Which is great characterization.
Also note that at this point there’s no telepathic link, or bond of closeness, between the Doctor and the Ship of the type that develops later. The Hartnell/TARDIS relationship, at least in Season One and early Season Two, is that he doesn’t know how it works, isn’t sure what it’s going to do next, and is somewhat scared of it. (This comes over nicely in Planet of Giants). Overall, I’m finding that the effect of the early Hartnell stories is to suggest a very different backstory than the one that is eventually presented in The War Games.
Miles and Wood make the point about The Edge of Destruction that the twist isn’t that a switch was stuck, the twist is that the TARDIS was communicating. I just watched it for the first time and was struck by an even more specific version of their observation: because of how the switch ends up being stuck, the Ship thinks it’s under attack. So the first thing it does is try to drive everyone on the ship mad so they’ll take their fingers off the switch. And then when that doesn’t work it tries to communicate. Or in other words, first it lashes out in pain, then it tries to reason through the situation. Which is great characterization.
Also note that at this point there’s no telepathic link, or bond of closeness, between the Doctor and the Ship of the type that develops later. The Hartnell/TARDIS relationship, at least in Season One and early Season Two, is that he doesn’t know how it works, isn’t sure what it’s going to do next, and is somewhat scared of it. (This comes over nicely in Planet of Giants). Overall, I’m finding that the effect of the early Hartnell stories is to suggest a very different backstory than the one that is eventually presented in The War Games.