Doctor Who - The Web Planet

Animus Crackers

Doctor Who - The Web Planet
Airdate: 13th Feb - 20th March 1965
BBC 1 - Region B Blu Ray Six Episodes

Hmm... okay then, time for me to finally sit through The Web Planet. This was one of my favourite of the First Doctor Target novelisations as a kid and it was the second one the company released in that kind of format... always under the title Doctor Who And The Zarbi. However, as much as I admired the book, written by the same guy who’d written the original script to this one, I couldn’t get through more than the first episode of the actual TV version when I borrowed a VHS cassette of this from my cousin in the early 1990s. And I’ll get to why in  a minute but first, a very brief flavour of the plot...

The Doctor (William Hartnell), Ian (William Russell), Barbara (Jaqueline Hill) and Vicki (Maureen O’Brien) are pulled down, as at the end of the last episode of The Romans (reviewed here) onto a strange planet, which they later discover is called Vortis. There, they are split up into groups by various threats (as is the nature of a Doctor Who story) and have to help in a conflict between the evil, spider like animus of the planet that controls the ant-like Zarbi (which I’m assuming is the same plurally here as it is the singular of the name of the species), the moth-like Menoptera (who, judging from recent trailers, may well be returning to the show for the first time later this year) and a third species who are technically the ancestors of the Menoptera (who are themselves trying to reclaim the planet). Shenanigans ensue and the outcome is, pretty much what you’d expect.

Okay, that’s enough plot. The reason I had troubles watching this was because the quality of the image was so bad on VHS. I assumed at the time it was the state of the original negatives that were used but. looking at this Blu Ray, it seems (and I’ve since confirmed this), that every time the exterior of the planet (itself a studio bound set where you can see the joins on the skyline backdrop) is used... which is pretty much most of the story... a bizarre filter was used to make blurry streaks across the camera, obscuring half of what you see. I can only surmise that the people filming realised how bad the Zarbi costumes were and wanted to obscure them as much as possible. Yeah, pretty much ant shells with a little bit of controlled movement in the legs/arms and two, black stockinged human feet clearly walking around.

That being said, the Menoptera costumes are quite beautiful and, when they take off, fly around a bit and land due to the magic of wires, they look even better. I guess the vaseline-like smearing on the camera also helped hide the wires on these because, I somehow couldn’t spot them.

Okay, so it’s very much business as usual but the story feels very padded, I have to say. Quite possibly... because the show was a studio bound series of sets... they maybe wanted to make it last a while because it was presumably a lot cheaper than going on location. But it did feel like the whole thing could have been covered in two episodes (or, indeed, on 20 minute episode of an old 1930s serial such as Flash Gordon, for instance). I mean, some of the designs and landscapes were good and some of them were bad. A pyramid projected onto the backdrop, for example, would have looked much more convincing if it wasn’t also half projected onto the backs of The Doctor and Ian when they go over to investigate. And the sound the Zarbi make was possibly inspired by the sound the ants make in Them! but, it gets pretty irritating after a while. And even the comedy element coming from the knowledge that one of the chief Menoptera was played by a young Martin Jarvis in his first role doesn’t really do much to lift the show. That being said, the cliffhanger ending to episode five, where the screams of The Doctor and Vicki can be heard as they are covered in an enveloping web, is pretty terrifying, I would say.

And that’s me done with The Web Planet, I think. There are a few extras but not as many as on most of the other discs in the BBCs Season 2 collection but, happily, one of those extras is the Behind The Sofa feature, which I’m really getting into just lately. It’s not a story I’d recommend using to jump into the show, for sure but, it’s a nice look at one of the more ambitious (in terms of effects and costumes) of the earlier shows and the monsters in this one were promoted in merchandise at the time. Worth a look if you’re already a watcher of the show, for sure.