Inside the Spaceship: The Edge of Destruction

The Edge of Destruction is one of my favourites ever. The cliffhanger from the previous episode had Ian, the Doctor and Susan in the console room before being thrown to the ground and a white light blinding the screen. After the a few moments everyone wakes up acting a bit strange. Barbara was the only one who wasn’t in the console room at the time so apart from a bit of forgetfulness she seems the be the best out of them all. A noticeable thing in the early stages is the lack of the humming that we have come to expect.

The early theory is that something or someone has got inside the TARDIS after they discover the doors are open. Considering we don’t hear or see anything it’s not a theory that works but the actors perform like they believe it. We have a moment where the TARDIS scanner is apparently showing them pictures of what is outside and we learn that the there was an adventure before ‘An Unearthly Child’ (this forms the story Qunnis released by Big Finish in 2010). Another strange thing that the TARDIS is doing is opening the doors and when someone moves towards them like Ian does a couple of times they then close.

William Hartnell is superb in this episode. I like how as Ian puts it he is playing the perfect butler just moments after accusing them of terrible things. He gives a solid performance though he is slightly undermined by the silly bandage around his head for a cut we don’t know how he got considering he wasn’t by the console when he fell. Ian is acting very strange, almost un-Ian like. The delivery of his lines is cold and dare I say it alien. After spending seven weeks in various versions of being a hero, William Russell gets to play a different part of his character and over the course of the episode goes through a wide ranging emotions and deals with it well. Susan is child like but given the weird circumstances that she finds herself in then it’s perfectly fine. That does change after about 12 minutes when she starts to act weirdly and is dressed in a black gown and it’s the best performance from Carole Ann Ford so far. They all have a pain at the back of their heads which is first noticed by Barbara. Barbara really shines in this episode because she stands up to the Doctor and is the one that tries to solve the puzzle. With Ian behaving oddly, it means she’s the sensible one. Barbara’s best scene was when she stands up to the Doctor after being accused and pointing out that the Doctor owes a lot to her and Ian. It’s one of the best scenes in the episode.

We get to see a bit more of the TARDIS in this story as we get to see the sleeping quarters. Admittedly its only the lounge and the sunbeds but it still good to see more than the console room. On the back of designing the Daleks, Raymond Cusick does a great job of creating the extended TARDIS sets with next to no money. So the sunbeds do look a bit out of place but it’s better and less silly than it could have done.

The scene with Susan and the scissors is one of the scenes that got Verity Lambert into trouble and it’s easy to see why. Not only is it because scissors are an easily obtained item but also it’s a superbly acted scene between William Russell and Carole Ann Ford. Richard Martin can’t really do anything special like he did in ‘The Daleks’ but he still manages to create a great episode and does have some moments of brilliance especially with the clock and Barbara’s watch melting.

what I like about this episode is how the relationship between all four characters breaks down in a spectacular way. There has always been friction between Ian and Barbara and the Doctor but Susan has always been there to calm things down but when she starts to side with her grandfather. The Doctor accuses Ian and Barbara of tampering the ship.

The final minute of the episode is fantastic. The music along with Hartnell wandering from room to room checking of Ian and Barbara before going over to the console and before he gets chance to do anything a pair of hands appear from behind him and we don’t see who it is. Now we are still to believe that someone or something has got into the TARDIS but as I don’t buy that I knew that the hands must have been Ian’s and that works as a much better cliffhanger because we have two of the series regulars who as a viewer we are suppose to like are now at each others throats. This was a great cliffhanger.

As an episode it was atmospheric and almost like a play with only two real sets and just the four regulars. One of the reasons why I love these two episodes is that there is great character development and we get to see different sides of the characters than what we had seen in the previous 11 weeks.