A Weekend Down Memory Lane

Well, I had a pretty amazing weekend.  I caught up with a whole load of obscure exploitation movies I'd almost given up hope of ever tracking down.  Kicking off with another Paul Naschy werewolf movie - The Return of Walpurgis - I followed this up with 1966's It! - a companion piece to The Frozen Dead which we looked at some time ago.  I then pulled an all-nighter to watch a triple bill of Lindsay Shonteff moves: his 1970 private eye movie Clegg, the legendary Big Zapper from 1973 and its 1974 sequel Zapper's Blade of Vengeance (aka The Swordsman).  Exhausted, I finally surfaced on Sunday to catch a showing on the Drama channel of 1960s classic Dr Who story Tomb of the Cybermen, with Patrick Troughton as the Doctor.  I'll save detailed discussion of the movies for future posts because today I'd like to offer a few thoughts on the Dr Who story.  Some of my earliest TV memories are of Patrick Troughton as the second Doctor, so watching this was a trip down memory lane, although I can't honestly say that I remember this particular story from its first broadcast, (I do have vague memories of a preceding story, Evil of the Daleks, but my second Doctor Cyberman memories mainly concern The Wheel in Space from a couple of years later).  I've watched quite a bit of sixties TV drama over the past twelve months and this was pretty typical of the era, with a pace which seems slow by todays standards and an entirely studio-bound production.  The production values are actually pretty good for the era and the supporting cast (including Hammer's regular 'sinister foreigner' of the era, George Pastell, as the main villain) is pretty good.  Troughton, as ever, is excellent as the Doctor.

The most obvious difference between this and contemporary TV productions is the style.  Back in the sixties both TV cameras, editing equipment and video effects technology were far cruder.  Consequently, the kind of tracking shots, transitions and sharp cutting both between scenes and within scenes, as the focus switches from one character to another are absent.  Cuts and dissolves appear very crude, (some were performed 'live' during the recording rather than post-production).  This, in part, dictated the slower pace of productions of the era.  That and the fact that TV drama at this time tended to draw on theatre rather than cinema for its creative inspiration, making productions seem somewhat static and 'stagey', both in terms of their structure and staging and performances.  But, as I said, this is what British TV drama of the period was typically like, (the exceptions tended to be the filmed productions like The Saint and The Avengers turned out by ITC which, whilst shown on the ITV network here were really aimed at the international market), and to fully enjoy something like Tomb of the Cybermen, you have to try and watch it in this context.  You also have to accept that audience expectations of popular TV drama back then were far less sophisticated and this is reflected in the script, which features a straightforward linear plot and little in the way of character development or depth.  Sure, there are some good ideas in the script, but their exposition is kept simple and they aren't developed to their full potential.

Anyway, watching this slice of classic sixties Dr Who, I couldn't help but think that if there had been an internet back then, it would have been full of exactly the same type of 'fans' who profess to love classic Who and spend all their time sniping at the current version for not being classic Who, that plague us nowadays.  Doubtless, they would have been complaining at how inconsistent with previous Cyberman stories Tomb was, pointing out the lack of continuity.  They'd also probably be complaining that it was too slow and just not as sophisticated as stories from the 'classic' era of William Hartnell and telling us all that producer Innes Lloyd was 'ruining' the programme with his focus on 'juvenile' storylines and companions.   Most of all they'd probably be decrying Patrick Troughton's performance, accusing him of trying to turn the series into a sitcom with his more humourous interpretation of the Doctor, thereby desecrating the memory of William Hartnell.  But thankfully, they didn't have the internet back then, so everyone could enjoy Dr Who in peace, allowed to make their own critical assessments without being perpetually told why it was really rubbish and if you didn't think that then you were an idiot and not a true fan.