…oh for a can of DN6, it’s…
The Web Planet
In which Barbara
gets the butterflies; Ian and the Doctor prove themselves to be nothing but a couple of sad old anoraks; Vicki
finds herself a new pet for Barbara to mercilessly slay (no doubt); and the whole series appears to take a (un)healthy dose of mescaline and goes bat-shit crazy for six episodes…
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| Time and time again, the Doctor had told Barbara not to eat peanuts whilst standing next to the control console. This time she'd managed to drop a whole packet down the side of the Time Rotor...everyone was really worried she'd fucked it for good this time. |
- ‘We’re being slowly dragged down’ says the Doctor. Ian then repeats this. Well, you can’t say we weren’t warned!
- apparently dogs can hear high pitched sounds too - doesn’t
say much for what Bill Strutton (or the production team) think of Vicki, does
it.
- did Barbara just say she saw a ‘flasher behind one of those
crags’ or is the Zarbi’s constant screeching causing me to imagine things.
- she then starts doing the housework. She's so anal! I bet she's the type that'd even iron her old man's pants and socks. One thing's for sure, you'd never find Barbara burning her bra...she's more likely to launder it to within an inch of its life and then put it away tidily in her tallboy.
 |
| The cover of the novelisation of The Web Planet, (depicting a frisky Zarbi attempting to mount the Doctor). |
- Zarbi - their front
legs flail about with a life seemingly all of their own. Could have your eye
out if you’re not careful. It’s quite bizarre, but even though they’re mindless drones,
they really do seem to have characters all of their own. They’re like fussy
little men skittering about the place. They’re also arachnophobes - I never
thought I’d ever have anything in common with a Zarbi!
 |
| 'Come on...you know you want it' - with the Doctor and Ian safely out of the ship, Vicki decided it was high time she gave full reign to her lesbian tendencies. |
- Ian puts his space anorak on over his normal anorak.
Hmmm, he’s a two anorak kind of a guy. Respect! Nice to see that the ADJ’s have
hoods. Not only do they help you breathe on inhospitable planets, but they'll keep
your hair dry during a light shower too.
- why is the Doctor so reluctant to open the doors using his
ring in front of Ian - I mean, they’re all good friends by now. And anyway, if,
as Ian points out, there’s no power to open the doors, then how come the lights
are still working? Don’t tell me…they’re on a different circuit.
- ‘Lots of lovely things to buy and eat and wear’ says
Vicki - like I said last time, spoilt shallow brat.
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| On set, Bill H allows himself a few moments for a little prayer... |
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| It was no good, if Ian didn't go now he was going to piss himself... |
- after what happened with the rock pool on Marinus you’d
think Ian would be a bit more hesitant about going to drink from the one he and
the Doctor happen upon whilst out exploring.
- Martinisms - *sigh* what’s the point of hiring a crane
to film lovely high angle shots when all you do is go so high the audience
are able to see the rocks are nothing more than propped up plywood cut-outs held
down with stage weights? The Statue of the Gods is very impressive, until you
realise it’s a projection. How can you tell? Why, because the image is picked
up on Ian’s and the Doctor’s bright white space anoraks! At the beginning of
Episode Two, Ian is shown lying on the ground for an age before anything
happens. Having everyone walk so close to the cyclorama means their shadows are
cast against it, ruining the illusion of perspective, (and besides that, the
background scenery has a bloody great join in it running from ceiling to floor - so why does Richard Martin insist on positioning actors right in front of it
for a bloody great close up at the beginning of so many scenes?) Bill H is
caught looking for his cue on a couple of occasions. Then there’s the Zarbi
which runs full pelt into the camera. And possibly the most unforgivable goof
of all - the larvae gun sitting in the background of shot waiting for “action”
as Ian attempts to escape the web city, with its operator peering out from
between its tentacle-like legs to see what’s going on!
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| Even on an alien planet, Ian was liable to step in a huge pile of dog shit. |
- ‘What’s happened to that weed?’ ponders the Doctor in The
Zarbi. I think Richard M’s been smoking it round Bill Strutton’s
house if all this is anything to go by. And if things couldn’t get any odder, a
bloody great moth’s just poked its head up out of nowhere.
- when the TARDIS is being dragged away, it actually looks as though
it’s thought ‘bugger this’ and is in fact trying to do a runner out the studio.
- the landscape reminds me of that in Midnight.
- the special filters/handfuls of Vaseline that’s been smeared all over the lens (delete as applicable, and depending on which reference guide you’re reading) for the supposed outside shots gets a
bit hard going after a while. It’s really not easy on the eye. You can’t
distinguish anything clearly. The exterior of the Animus’s Web City could be
wonderful for I know…it’s just that I can’t bloody see it properly. However, you can see
the inside of it okay…and sadly it’s a bit shit.
- Menoptra - I do wish
they would keep still. It’s a bit like being captured by Arlene Phillips -
they’re constantly busting some new move or other! When they first come across
Barbara she must feel as though she’s being interrogated by the Royal Ballet
(with all those hand movements they’d be fab on Give Us a Clue). And they’re so twitchy and wobbly - sometimes when they walk
onto the set it’s like they’ve just left the pub. And they’re a right smug
bunch of Imperialist bastards. They treat the Zarbi like cattle (not a good
connotation when you look at the way in which we treat cattle) and think the
Optera are too thick to understand what they’re talking about. Their bodies, meanwhile, appear to be made of alternate layers of fluffy fun fur and leather, glued onto
a pair of old dungarees (you can see the braces holding them up occasionally if
you look closely). The overall effect is as if they’ve each got a
bad case of middle-aged spread.
 |
| Highly collectible Zarbi Top Trump card... no, really! |
- Larvae Guns - they
whizz about (as if, indeed, they were on whizz) like Brian the snail from The Magic Roundabout. And their
operators clearly can’t see where they’re going as in Episode Two one enters
the cave and almost sticks its proboscis up a Menoptra’s arse. The last shot of
the serial sees them doubling up as watering cans, spraying the ground with
water, whereas up to that point all they’ve done is spit death…Mr Logic has
left the building methinks.
- ironically, just like a mobile phone, the Menoptra are
unable to get a signal on their communications device when they try to use it
from inside the cave.
- no one ever seems to pick up on this, but I’m sure Vrestin
calls Ian “Hair-on”, as in, "with hair". Most people suggest it’s Heron - a simple
mispronunciation of his correct name, but that’s a bit crap if you ask me. What do you all think?
- in the recap at the beginning of Crater of Needles someone
can be heard laughing like mad as the cave-in happens. Maybe they’re having a
party in the gallery. I half expected to see Richard Martin leading a conga
across the set.
 |
| Hovering around the cocktail cabinet, Bill and Maureen tried to weigh up whether or not 9.30 in the morning was a bit too early for a quintuple gin and tonic. |
- we’re introduced to some new Menoptra in Episode Four, one
of whom is Hlynia (or Hlynia Bonham-Carter as I like to think of her). Erm...why
does an alien insect have a Welsh accent though?
- it’s really trying it’s best, but the problem is, the
Menoptra are so laid-back it’s impossible to take the warning concerning the
ambush seriously. This means that when the face-off between the landing party
and the Zarbi does eventually happen, it feels about as much of a threat as a one-to-one round on Eggheads.
- ‘Next Week: Invasion’. Good. A few Cybermen should liven
things up a bit.
- Optera - how to
describe an Optera? A kamikaze grub with a noodle head, wrapped in an old dog
blanket, wearing oven gloves and big slippers, sounding a bit like one of the
Japanese guards from Tenko and
hopping about like one of Monty Python’s Jumping
Jews just about sums it up. I always think they look a bit Fuzzy Felt-ish. They really are the final step towards weirdness in
this story - I feel like I’ve dropping an “E”.
 |
| It was as she found herself squatting on the hard studio floor, clinging on to a Jimmy Savile lookalike and covered in insect jizz, that Maureen O' Brien found herself wondering whether it had been a good idea to sign that contract. |
- well, to be fair, it’s not the worst thing Martin Jarvis
has ever done. I remember Rings on Their
Fingers.
- oh, look! Another rock fall. And, bloody hell, it’s the
best in the series so far.
- after reading the Doctor’s mind, the Animus becomes intent
on invading the Earth (Yawn!) so’s it can utilise man’s mastery of space. This
would seem to indicate that the current thinking is the Doctor’s human. When
did this happen? Did David Whitaker forget to leave Dennis Spooner a note when
he took over from him as script editor? It wouldn't have taken much - “Dennis…there’s half a bottle of Scotch and some
left over teabags in the filing cabinet. Help yourself. Good luck…David. P.S.
He’s an alien”. And it’s twice in one season now that the Doctor's landed on a
planet he’s already visited. First Dildo, now Vortis. Does this mean a trip to
Esto is on the cards?
 |
| Chaos ensues in the Great British Bake Off tent when Mary Berry's latest technical challenge goes hideously wrong. |
- the floor of the Animus’s Centre is covered in rubber mats
and mattresses. D’you think it’s keen on gymnastics? There’s also a visible
power lead running off the set which illuminates its front bit.
- The Animus - looks
like someone’s tried to make a lampshade out of a spider…an image that’s just
made me feel a bit ill.
- ‘It doesn’t work’ cries Barbara with regards to the isop-tope.
That’s because it has no obvious firing mechanism, dear. It looks more like a Faberge egg than a weapon.
- Death-o-Meter: 81. Hrhoonda - shot by a Larvae
Gun. As he dies his wings fall off and for the rest of the scene everyone else
keeps slipping and sliding on them. Oh, the indignity; 82. Larvae Gun - squished against a wall during the breakout
from the Crater of Needles. It sounds gruesome but it’s actually hysterically
funny; 83. A Menoptra - shot
by a Larvae Gun during the abortive landing on the plateau (there are probably
more casualties during all this…one Zarbi appears to get knifed in the neck for
instance, but a mix of sloppy direction and too much lubricant on the lens
makes it impossible to count accurately); 84.
Nemini - sticks her head into a hole in a wall to block a stream
of acid pouring out! Speechless. I’m absolutely speechless. And drunk…at 11:32
in the morning I’d just like to point out; 85.
Hrostar - another victim of a Larvae Gun. As he dies he falls on it
and squishes it. There’s a strange sort of poetic justice in that; 86. Venom Grub - (see previous); 87. The Animus - dies when
Barbara points an old microphone head at it. Death by karaoke?
- Dictionary Corner (an occasional look at what comes up when you pop various Who related names into a search engine): Vortis (or VORTIS to be accurate) is the name given to a range of speakers which offer "outstanding directivity, excellent intelligibility and maximum versatility, three attributes which can in no way be levelled at the ropey, lumbering and ever so slightly shite inhabitants of the planet Vortis. "One of the many standout features of the VORTIS series is the selection of horns" the website brags...hmmm, Zarbi on the horn...doesn't bear thinking about. And can you image the noise if their chittering was to be amplified via VORTIS? It'd be enough to make every single orifice bleed; there was a Vrestin Meadluck born in Rogers, Oklahoma around 1927 according to the 1930 United States Federal Census, doesn't say whether they were a giant butterfly or not though; Animus is a company which "offers a specialist Veterinary Management Support service". Apparently they have "built up an excellent reputation providing practical and pragmatic advice that works in veterinary practice". So by the sounds of it they'd be the ideal people to take your Larvae Gun to should you want it bollocks removing; finally, Hetra Media are a company based in Chelmsford, Essex, who specialise in the installation of digital aerials and satellite dishes. So if ever you're having problems with the reception on your telly, give them a call and see if a large, incomprehensible grub comes round and charges you fifty quid for shinning up a ladder and waggling your transmitter.
Score on the
TARDIS Doors - 3 - the language
throughout from the Menoptra is lyrical and quite, quite beautiful, with
Prapillus’s polemic about light in Episode Five being wonderfully evocative. Some
of the design is also great, such as the Crater of Needles and
the view of the Web City (well, what you can make out of them through all the
murk). The premise of the story itself is also sound. It’s just that the way in
which it’s been put together is a bit pants. The first episode puts me in mind
of the Dead Planet (twenty-five minutes that were obviously considered so good other writers are desperately trying to
emulate its success) and this too is suitably spooky in parts (especially Barbara’s
weird behaviour, the spinning console and the sheer general alien-ness of the
surroundings). In fact it echoes The
Daleks in a number of ways - the two-pronged attack on the city in the
final episode after a long and arduous trek is pure Terry N. Otherwise, it’s
just all so bloody odd. It’s difficult to know exactly what it’s trying to
say. About Time insists it’s an
allegory about communism, but for me at one point it was acting more as a
metaphor against deforestation, with the Animus representing the cancerous
conglomerates cutting down nature’s beauty in order to feed its bloated body
with the profits it makes from turning lush green forest into agricultural land, employing
thoughtless drones to carry out the work on their behalf. This, of course,
would make the Menoptra Greenpeace
activists. It also alludes to Second World War movies, with the Menoptra’s
planning for an assault on the Animus’s fortress being a bit like watching the
French Resistance plan an attack on a Nazi stronghold…while the business at the
Leo Sayer Plateau (or whatever) is a bit like the D-day landings - with lice! And
then, in Episode Four, we get insect suicide bombers, and in Episode Five a
surrealist underground retelling of Snow
White and the Seven Dwarves. Fucking mental!
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| 'And what's more' added the Second Menoptra, 'Your grandchildren are really fucking ugly.' |
(...a short time later...)
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