The Web Planet, by Bridget Cherry; Doctor Who and the Zarbi, by Bill Strutton

When I first started to watch The Web Planet in 2007, the DVD was unfortunately still in my laptop when it was stolen by a sneak thief at the Gare du Nord in Brussels. I got another copy eventually and wrote:

I got the DVD of The Web Planet, a First Doctor story from 1965 with Ian, Barbara and Vicki, back in January; and then, after I had read Wood and Miles‘ excoriating description of it, the disc was in my laptop when it got stolen. But I caught up with this one over the weekend as well.

Oh dear.

It’s very brave to try and produce an entire six-part story with no humanoid characters other than the regular cast, and the production teeters on the edge of greatness but, ultimately, falls off and hurtles to its doom. I mean, the Zarbi, with their unearthly whistling, are actually pretty good, so good that you can nearly forget that they are blokes in giant ant costumes. And the disembodied Animus is pretty sinister. But the Venom Grubs are, frankly, pathetic. And the Menoptra, with their bizarre dance movements, and their pitiful Optera relatives, are just ludicrous. I can’t quite believe that this is the only story from the original Season Two (apart from the glorious Dalek Invasion of Earth) available on DVD. Almost any other would make more sense and be a better advertisement for Who as a whole. (I have reservations about The Chase, though it does at least have Daleks and a variety of settings, and I’ve only seen the first episode of The Space Museum so can’t speak to the whole of it, though I must say it really grabbed me.)

Maureen O’Brien is good as Vicki though, perhaps the best I remember her in any of her stories. The others are fine too, especially (as ever) Hartnell.

Coming back to it two years later for my Great Rewatch, I wrote:

When I first watched The Web Planet two years ago I really didn’t rate it. In my current rewatch, it is the first story where I have revised my opinion significantly upwards. Unlike the other non-Dalek sfnal stories so far it looks weird rather than crap. I think I appreciate it much more now that I have got my watching brain acclimatised to the mid 1960s, as it were; and perhaps it is easier to take it an episode at a time rather than sitting down to watch all six. The Menoptra and Zarbi (and the Animus) are much more convincing aliens than the Voord or the Sensorites, the sets are excellent and the vaseline on the camera lenses adds to the air of alienness. It is no wonder that this was one of the very first novelisations, or that the first Doctor Who annual had not one but two stories set on Vortis. (The Optera and Venom Grubs are still a bit less convincing, but I was able to rise above that somehow.) We also see a lot more of the inside of the Tardis than ever before. Lots of good character moments for all four regulars, with Barbara saving the day.

Coming back to it, I attempted to binge the whole story in an evening, and I think this was a mistake; I found myself confused and actually a little bored. Yes, the makers of the show achieved miracles on a shoestring, but it’s difficult for today’s viewer to grasp. People who saw it the first time around were generally more impressed, most notably Peter Capaldi:

…those old shows were only made to be watched once, on a flickering monochrome telly that smelled of valves and furniture polish. In that context, they succeeded immeasurably. They were triumphs of imagination. It may surprise you now, but something like The Web Planet lived powerfully and expansively in my head for decades… until the DVDs came along and spoiled the party. But I’m glad to say that the Menoptra eventually flitted back into my dreams, where they belong.

The novel, Doctor Who and the Zarbi, by Bill Strutton, the Australian writer of the original story, was the second Doctor Who novel ever published (after Doctor Who In An Exciting Adventure with the Daleks). The second paragraph of its third chapter is:

“Chesterton, get back! Back!”

I (obviously) read it as a child, and was fascinated. Coming back to it in 2008, I wrote:

Doctor Who and the Zarbi was based on the story now generally called The Web Planet, which crashes and burns spectacularly awfully on screen because today’s viewers cannot take the production values seriously. The book is a bit better, because the printed page and the reader’s imagination, rather than the unforgiving camera, supplies the details of the various non-human races in conflict on the planet Vortis. In principle it makes a good sf story, perhaps the best sf story, in terms of the norms of the genre, from the whole Hartnell era.

The book does suffer from a couple of weaknesses. Most bizarrely, and uniquely, the central character is referred to as “Doctor Who” rather than “the Doctor” throughout, and the Tardis loses the definite article, as if Tardis was just the name of the vessel. Also, in places the book feels uncomfortably like what it is, a TV script cast in different format, and one feels that Strutton is just writing what appeared to the viewer on the screen. Having said that, though, the book is still better than the original TV story.

To call it “the best sf story, in terms of the norms of the genre, from the whole Hartnell era” is a strong statement, and to be honest I think three of the four Hartnell Dalek stories are better contenders. But as a story, it’s at the upper end and the novelisation pulls that out. You can get Doctor Who and the Zarbi here.

The illustrations in the book are really striking.

They are credited to one John Wood, which is also the name of the BBC designer who worked on the TV story. Fannish lore, however, insists that these are two different people, and further that the illustrator John Wood is a mistake for John Woods, one of the illustrators who also worked on the three 1960s Dalek books (The Dalek Book, The Dalek World and The Dalek Outer Space Book). Unfortunately the three or four different artists who worked on the Dalek books are not credited individually, so it is difficult to compare.

I am not convinced by fannish lore. I think Occam’s Razor shaves closer to the possibility that the same artist designed the TV show and illustrated the book. Also, the Vicki in the illustrations is a brunette, whereas Maureen O’Brien at that age was blonde. Surely this indicates that the illustrations could have been based on the original production design, which might have dated from before Maureen O’Brien’s start on the show? The Web Planet was only her third story, and its first episode was her seventh. Also, if John Wood’s name was spelled incorrectly when the book was first published, surely he would have had a chance to correct it before a different publisher brought it out again ten years later?

Anyway. Brigid Cherry, a retired media studies academic who like Peter Capaldi is old enough to have seen the story when it was first broadcast in 1965, has written a redemptive Black Archive monograph on it. I must say that while my favourite Black Archives are those that tell me all the reasons why my favourite stories are so fantastic, I do also like the ones like this where the writer challenges my less positive views and finds reasons that I had not considered to appreciate a story. There are only three chapters, but they are long and it is a chunky read.

A substantial introduction, with the title “So the Legends Say: Receptions of The Web Planet“, looks at views of The Web Planet, contrasting the rather harsh take of modern fans such as me with the much more positive memories of those who saw it at the time, including the author herself, Stephen James Walker and contributors to an online forum. She doesn’t quote Peter Capaldi here, but his comments are fully aligned with her argument.

I’m going to lazily use the author’s summaries of her own chapters. “Chapter one [whose title is “Every Corner of Vortis: Televisuality”] explores the aesthetics of the story in relation to how television was made at the time, and the ways in which the mise-en-scène, art design, camerawork and other stylistic elements were determined by these production processes. In terms of The Web Planet being considered an ambitious, if not over-ambitious, experiment, this chapter also frames early Doctor Who, and this story specifically, as an example of the experimental television being produced at the time.”

“Chapter two [whose title is: “Flying Above thought: Performance”] extends this approach by further considering the performativity of the story, considering it in relation to art or media forms such as puppetry, mime, and avant-garde theatre. These two chapters are necessarily historiography (writing about the past) not in order to definitively answer the question of whether The Web Planet is great children’s TV or a failed experiment – it might be both, of course. Rather, it is an analysis intended to re-examine it from the perspective of TV production history and the history of the wider arts and popular culture of the time. Such historiography… can be both an account of industrial circumstances (in this instance, aspects of production and performance at the BBC in the 1960s) and a social history where the text reflects the national (or global) zeitgeist.”

The second paragraph of the third and final chapter (whose title is: “The Light is Good: Themes”) is:

There are several technological forms contrasted in The Web Planet: the organic technology of the Carsinome; the inorganic crystalline technology used by the Menoptra (the prime example of which is the communication device that Vrestin uses to contact the invasion force in ‘The Zarbi’); the metallic gold collars (again inorganic) used by the Zarbi to ‘morphotise’ victims; and the mysterious energy that powers the TARDIS itself and is shown to repel the Animus and Zarbi (potentially both organic and inorganic since the Doctor’s ship often seems ‘alive’). These various forms of technology are indicative of technological, and thus cultural, development in each of the character groupings in the narrative.

The author’s summary is: “chapter 3 turns to the textual meanings that underpin the story, revealing the ideological meanings and discourses in relation to the 1960s zeitgeist. This also draws on yet another element of historiography discussed by Hilmes, that is consideration of the conditions under which the popular culture text is consumed or experienced.”

The short conclusion, “The Silence of Time: Reappraising The Web Planet”, sums up what has been said, and ends:

Bear in mind that when the Doctor stops Ian from plunging his hand into the acid pool in the opening episode, the lesson to be learnt is to be more cautious before rushing in and take more time to better understand what we are seeing. It is past time to re-appraise The Web Planet in contexts other than an established fan canon born of naiveté or ignorance of television history. It is, then, time to come back to Vortis. As this book has argued, The Web Planet’s innovative approaches demand it is given its deserved status in the canon of British experimental television.

As I hope is clear by now, I found this an entertaining and thought-provoking read, and maybe the next time I pop the DVD in the player I’ll approach the story in a more redemptive frame of mind. You can get the Black Archive here.

From the Heart of Europe

Books, politics, languages and life

The Web Planet, by Bridget Cherry; Doctor Who and the Zarbi, by Bill Strutton

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