Doctor Who: The Survivors
Spoilers for the episode
The Story:
They look for Barbara, find out about the high radiation levels, the Doctor confesses about sabotaging the TARDIS and they get captured by the Daleks.
Thoughts:
They’re still looking for Barbara in the city when they get distracted by a ticking noise that leads them to measuring equipment.
Ian hopes they can find Mercury for the TARDIS and thinks whoever made this equipment must be intelligent. He worries what form their intelligence will take but he Doctor dismisses his worries and just says the aliens are advanced.
The ticking leads Susan to a Geiger counter. Where someone has stuck a white label on one end of the scale that says danger. I wonder how the Daleks managed to stick the label on it with no hands. That must be tricky with just a plunger.
The Doctor diagnoses them as having radiation poisoning. Ian gets agitated but Susan says they can travel to another time to get medicine. Ian points out they can’t because of the fluid link and they need the Mercury.
The Doctor confesses what he did and his reasons for it, he wanted to explore the city, and it’s so funny. He says it in such a matter of fact way as he hands the fluid link to Ian. The look of Ian’s face is brilliant.
They have a bit of an argument where Susan and Ian aren’t happy. The Doctor decides it’s time to leave but Ian says they can’t because they’ve got to find Barbara. And here’s the reason he handed the fluid link to Ian in the first place because now Ian won’t give it back. He’s got something over the Doctor and they’re going to do what he wants to do.
The Doctor agrees but I think it’s mostly because he’s not feeling well and can’t be bothered to argue. I love this entire exchange between them.
They exit the room and the Daleks are waiting for them outside. Susan doesn’t get around to screaming but you can tell she wants to.
Ian decides to make a run for it so the Daleks can demonstrate why that’s a bad idea. He gets shot but it only paralyzes his legs. And even after the Daleks explain what they’ve done he keeps repeating ‘my legs’ as if he can’t believe he could be defeated so easily.
They get put in a cell with Barbara and the writers continue to make her ask stupid questions. This time she decides to ask Ian what those things are as if he’s going to know.
They tell her about the radiation poisoning and she asks what’s going to happen to them. The Doctor, probably fed up with endless stupid questions, tells the truth. If they get no treatment they’re going to die.
The Daleks decide to interrogate the Doctor because they think he’s a Thall who are their enemies.
The Doctor gets a bit of information out of them but he doesn’t manage to talk his way out of it.
The radiation medicine is in the TARDIS so the Daleks send one of them to get it and it turns out it has to be Susan. The Doctor can barely move, Barbara doesn’t feel well and Ian can’t walk.
So there were two reasons he was the one to get shot. So he couldn’t travel back to the TARDIS and to show that you can’t just out run the Daleks.
Ian is determined to go though and gets very annoying about the whole thing. He can barely stand and Susan says you have to put the key in the TARDIS just right or the lock melts as a defense mechanism. So Ian declares she’ll have to come with him.
Susan ends up going alone and I like that. It’s a good growing up moment for her.
Susan’s journey back to the TARDIS is a bit slow and there’s a storm going with thunder and lightning to make it more dramatic. Then she sees something scary and we get a close up shot of her head flailing around and being hit by branches as she runs away. It’s a bit silly but very in character for Susan.
She gets to the TARDIS and finds the vials hugging them to her in relief. Then she realises she’s only done half the journey and has to go back out into the jungle. Facing whatever she’s just run away from.
A lot happens in this episode but it still feels slow to me. My dislike of Ian is growing because he’s stuck in the ‘man’ role and has to be in charge. While Barbara comes across as stupid even though no one else knows what’s going on either.
Previous Doctor Who: The Dead Planet Next Doctor Who: The Escape
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