The Edge of Destruction, by Simon Guerrier (and David Whitaker, and Nigel Robinson)

When I first watched this story in 2006, I wrote:

This must be one of the few pre-Davison stories that I had neither seen on TV nor read in novelisation form. It’s a two-parter, from immediately after the first Dalek story, featuring only the four members of the Tardis crew – the first Doctor, his grand-daughter Susan, and the teachers Ian and Barbara. There is a fifth character, not played by an actor, but I’ll get to that.

This was very very brave. The production team had run out of money, and had to do an entire story with no guest actors and no sets beyond what had already been made. The two episodes had two different directors, one of whom had never directed a television drama before. It could have been a disaster.

In fact it is very good. I would even have said excellent, were it not for the bathos of the minor technical problem with the Tardis which turns out to be at the core of the plot. But apart from that – and one or two minor slips from Hartnell, though he keeps it together for the big set-piece speeches – I was surprised by just how good it is.

I also watched the DVD documentary, which is entertaining and enlightening, and also actually slightly longer than either of the episodes. Meta-text, isn’t that the concept I’m looking for?

When I rewatched it in 2009, I wrote rather more briefly:

The Edge of Destruction is a two-episode filler with a great beginning and middle but a less good resolution. The weirdness on the Tardis screen, the clock faces and the odd behaviour of the crew are all nicely done, but the broken spring is rather banal and unmagical. However, what really makes the story memorable is the humanising of the Doctor and the repairing of his relationship with Barbara.

Rewatching it now, it seems rather staged, but staged rather well. These are four believable characters in an unbelievable situation, and the story efficiently works it through to the end.

I also read the novelisation back in 2008, and wrote then:

Robinson has taken a two-episode story and padded it out with some interesting new material of Ian and Barbara exploring the depths of the Tardis. Unfortunately, Robinson’s own prose style is thunderously bad in places. For completists only.

The second paragraph of the third chapter is:

In the darkness, the rhythmic in-out in-out breathing of the life support system seemed even more eerily alive. Ian shuddered, but resisted the urge to share his fears with the Doctor who would only delight in ridiculing his irrational notions.

I think I was a little unfair in my first reading. Robinson is not a fluid writer, but I’ve certainly read much worse, including much worse Doctor Who books. You cn get it here (for a price).

Simon Guerrier’s Black Archive on The Edge of Destruction is one of the shortest in the series, clocking in at a mere 108 pages. The story is a short one, but James Cooray Smith got 73 pages out of the 6 minutes of Night of the Doctor, and at that rate this volume would have been about the length of The Lord of the Rings.

It starts with an introduction, which makes a bold assertion:

I’ve a theory about you, the reader of this book. I think you:

Have seen the 2013 drama An Adventure in Space and Time.

Can identify moments in it that aren’t quite what happened.

Understand why such dramatic licence was necessary.

I feel seen. It is as if I had had dinner with the author at Gallifrey One this year. Oh, wait…

The introduction further looks at the paucity of archive sources on the story, and makes the important point that he will refer to it in the book as “Series C” to distinguish between it and the first episode, whose title is “The Edge of Destruction”.

The first chapter, “Part One – On the Edge” looks in detail at what we know about the commissioning, writing and recording of the story, deflating a couple of the myths that have circulated about it in fannish circles.

The second chapter, “Part Two – Beyond the Brink” proposes Guerrier’s first five theories about the story: 1) that it is weird by design of the cast and producers, 2) that the show-runners had decided already to make it a show about alien beings; 3) that the TARDIS manipulating the minds of the crew is a metaphor for TV affecting its audience; 4) that the scientific basis of the story is relatively sound; and 5) that the story was written with a view to reinforcing the continuation of Doctor Who as a show.

The third chapter’s title is “Part Three – Inside the Spaceship”. Its second paragraph is:

The camera script for ‘The Edge of Destruction’ suggests that David Whitaker intended to exploit and adapt this existing space, but not to add an extra room to the TARDIS. Although Scene 2 is headed ‘Int. The Girls’ Bedroom’, stage directions immediately after this say, ‘Susan now has a medical box open on the table in the living quarters’, so the bedroom was intended to be part of that pre-existing space. Stage directions continue that, ‘If possible one of the circular wall pieces should be open as if it is a cupboard.’ Then, in Scene 6, Ian also ‘goes to one of the walls. He presses a switch and three of the circular wall pieces descend and a wall bed is revealed.’ The implication is that Whitaker envisaged the living quarters – even the whole TARDIS control room – as a kind of bedsit: a single space with multiple functions. (He had form in this; on 30 September 1963 he agreed to rework the scripts of The Daleks to combine sets wherever practical to reduce their overall number¹.)
¹ Christopher Barry, ‘Special effects in connexion with Dr Who 2nd story’, 30 September 1963, WAC T5/648/1 General B.

Here Guerrier proposes another five theories: 6) it’s the last time for a while that we see much of the inside of the TARDIS; 7) the roundels are meant to convey the thickness and robustness of the walls and door; 8) the crew were meant to have assigned positions for take-off; 9) the TARDIS is lusting for the heat of the Sun; and 10) if the TARDIS had changed shape, the protruding lock would have been a constant feature.

A brief conclusion argues that the oddness of the story is its virtue.

This is my favourite kind of Black Archive, taking a story which is not one of my all time favourites but finding sufficient points of interest in it to make me think more about the story itself, the art of story-telling on television, and Doctor Who. You can get it here.

From the Heart of Europe

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The Edge of Destruction, by Simon Guerrier (and David Whitaker, and Nigel Robinson)

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