The Web Planet

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013 – The Web Planet
Doctor Who serial
Barbara with the Menoptra and a Zarbi. The alien costumes and blurred camera lens received criticism from audiences.[1][2][3]
Cast
Others
  • Catherine Fleming – Animus voice
  • Roslyn de Winter – Vrestin
  • Arne Gordon – Hrostar
  • Arthur Blake – Hrhoonda
  • Jolyon Booth – Prapillus
  • Jocelyn Birdsall – Hlynia
  • Martin Jarvis – Hilio
  • Ian Thompson – Hetra
  • Barbara Joss – Nemini
  • Robert Jewell, Jack Pitt, Gerald Taylor, Hugh Lund, Kevin Manser, John Scott Martin – The Zarbi
Production
Directed by
Season 2
Running time6 episodes, 25 minutes each
First broadcast13 February 1965 (1965-02-13)
Last broadcast20 March 1965 (1965-03-20)
Chronology
← Preceded by
The Romans 		Followed by →
The Crusade
List of Doctor Who episodes (1963–1989)

The Web Planet is the fifth

BBC1 in six weekly parts from 13 February to 20 March 1965. In the serial, the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and his travelling companions Ian Chesterton (William Russell), Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), and Vicki (Maureen O'Brien
) ally themselves with the Menoptra, the former inhabitants of the planet Vortis, as they struggle to win back the planet from the malignant Animus (Catherine Fleming) and its Zarbi slaves.

When crafting an idea for the serial, Strutton recalled a memory as a child of watching two

stock music
. The Web Planet premiered with 13.5 million viewers, the highest in the series to date; it maintained high viewership across the six weeks. Reviews were mixed, with praise directed at its choreography and action, and criticism towards its costumes and confusing story; retrospective reviews applauded the serial's ambition despite its outdated visuals. The Web Planet was later novelised and released on VHS and DVD.

Plot

The TARDIS is forced to land on a planet which the First Doctor (William Hartnell) recognises as Vortis, but he is puzzled by the presence of several moons around the normally moonless planet. A force acting through Barbara Wright's (Jacqueline Hill) gold bracelet draws her outside, leaving Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) alone. The TARDIS is pulled by an unseen force across the planet surface. Barbara is drawn into a trio of the butterfly-like Menoptra who free her of the trance by removing the bracelet. She escapes but is captured by the ant-like Zarbi who use her to find the Menoptra. The Zarbi take Barbara and Hrostar (Arne Gordon), a Menoptra, to the Crater of Needles to drop vegetation into acid rivers which feed the Animus (voiced by Catherine Fleming).

The Zarbi take the Doctor and Ian Chesterton (William Russell) to the Carsinome where they find Vicki and the TARDIS. The Animus forces the Doctor to help track down the Menoptra invasion force. Ian escapes and meets a Menoptra called Vrestin (Roslyn de Winter). He learns the Menoptra and the Zarbi are native to the planet. The Animus has taken control of the planet, and the Menoptra have fled to one of the moons that the Animus has pulled into orbit. The Doctor accidentally reveals the Menoptra spearhead plan to land near the Crater of Needles, giving the Animus the opportunity to ambush them. Ian and Vrestin meet the Optera, descendants of the Menoptra who fled underground, and convince them to help fight the Animus, digging upwards beneath the Carsinome.

At the Crater of Needles, Barbara and Hrostar fail in their attempt to warn the Menoptra and the spearhead is massacred. The Doctor deduces that the Animus uses gold to channel its mesmerising force and counteracts it to control a Zarbi and escape with Vicki. They meet Barbara and the Menoptra and devise a plan to attack the Carsinome. The Doctor and Vicki are taken by the Zarbi to the Animus, a great spider-like creature. Barbara and the Menoptra attack the Carsinome from outside while Ian, Vrestin, and the Optera reach the Animus from below. They defeat the Animus with the Isoptope, a cell-destroying weapon devised by the Menoptra. The Zarbi return to their docile state, and the planet turns to its purer state. The Doctor and his companions leave in the TARDIS, and the creatures of Vortis promise to tell stories of their saviours.

Production

Conception and writing

In 1964, Australian writer

bull ants fighting inside an empty kerosene can; he linked this memory with his two sons, aged six and four, fighting each other. He discussed the idea with Lambert, and Whitaker officially commissioned the story, Doctor Who and the Webbed Planet, on 28 September 1964.[6]

bull ants
fighting as a child.

Les Structures Sonores; Martin found the sounds extraterrestrial, as they were created using glass rods and steel.[4] Lambert edited the final episode as Martin had departed for a holiday shortly after its recording;[8] she edited out a shot of the Carsenome web dissolving, explaining in a memo to Martin that "I thought nobody would know what on earth was happening".[9]

The scripts were due on 13 November; Strutton wrote them while in the process of relocating homes. Strutton's wife Marguerite created the name of the Zarbi.

free enterprise and the Zarbi communism.[10] Spooner also made edits to tie the serial into the preceding one, The Romans; the golden bracelet used to make Barbara fall under the influence of the Animus was a gift from Emperor Nero in The Romans.[11] Two of the Menoptra were renamed: Roster became Hrostar, and Papillus became Prapillus.[10]

Doctor Who Experience

The show's main designers,

fibreglass was used instead. The outfits were modelled on Robert Jewell, and they took around 30 minutes to don.[13] For a shot of the Temple of Light, Wood was inspired by the Aztec temples of South America.[15]

Casting and characters

The script for the third episode was structured to omit Barbara, as Jacqueline Hill was scheduled to take a week's holiday;[11] she retained a credit in Radio Times,[16] but not on-screen, as was common when the regular cast was absent.[17] Hill formally complained on 1 March 1965 and requested that her credit be reinstated for overseas sales, but this was not acted upon.[16][17] Lambert felt that Barbara's occupation as a schoolteacher meant that she should often work to save the day, as in The Web Planet.[18] All guest characters in the serial are non-humanoid.[19] Casting interviews for The Web Planet took place on 8 December 1964. Martin wanted special choreography for the insects, hiring Australian mime artist Roslyn de Winter to develop the delivery of the Optra and the hand gestures of the Menoptra; de Winter was also cast as Vrestin. For the Menoptra, the production team sought actors with dancing experience; one actor who auditioned was Peter Purves, but Martin felt that his talent would be wasted in the role and kept him in mind for later.[13][b] Catherine Fleming, who voiced the Animus, stood on set with a microphone and a script to read her lines.[22]

The three established Dalek operators—Jewell, Kevin Manser, and Gerald Taylor—were cast as the main Zarbi, alongside John Scott Martin in his first appearance on the series.[13] Ian Thompson and Barbara Joss were cast as the Optera;[23] Thompson had worked with Martin in the past, and Joss was an experienced dancer from Australia. Thompson and Martin collaborated to create the creatures' dialogue and behaviour.[24] Arne Gordon, who ran an antique stall in Portobello Road, was cast by Martin as she had large eyes suitable for an insect. Martin also cast Martin Jarvis as Hilio, having met him during his performance of Poor Bitos in the West End alongside Martin's girlfriend Suzanne Neve. Jolyon Booth, cast as Prapillus, was an old friend of Martin's,[25] while Jocelyn Birdsall, cast as Hlynia, had worked with Martin on stage in 1952.[26] Maureen O'Brien enjoyed working with Martin—The Web Planet was their first collaboration—due to his intelligence and their shared political outlook.[27]

Filming

Model filming for the serial began on 4 January 1965 at

BBC Television Film Studios on Stage 2 and lasted for several days. It included several model shots, including the TARDIS being moved across Vortis and the establishing model shot of the TARDIS's materialisation; the one-third scale prop created for The Romans was used.[28] Martin wanted to use a greased neutral-density filter on shots of Vortis to capture its thin atmosphere, but found that the optical glass was too expensive, opting for a cheaper alternative;[29] two special lenses were fitted, both of which broke at some point during production.[9] Some of the bird's-eye view shots were achieved by using mirrors.[30] Several of the shots featuring Barbara were filmed in advance from 6–7 January to accommodate for Hill to take a holiday;[31] she missed rehearsals of The Romans to film these.[32] Rehearsals for the first episode began on 18 January at the London Transport Assembly Rooms in Wood Green, and weekly recording for the serial began on 22 January.[27]

The second episode's recording session, on 29 January, overran by a costly 16 minutes due to several production problems leading to seven retakes;[33] among the problems were broken costumes, actors walking through shots, scenery problems causing actors to forget their lines, and a cast member speaking unprompted.[34] The third episode, recorded on 5 February, was beset by similar problems, including a delay in the delivery of some sets, camera failures, and a delay with the studio lighting; the recording overran by 37 minutes.[35] The recording had finished so late that the dressing room lights were switched off by studio management, forcing the crew to exit in darkness.[26] Following the recording, Lambert asked Martin to avoid allowing the actors to alter their dialogue, noting that major changes should be suggested at readthroughs with Spooner present.[26]

Fifteen bags of seaweed from Cornish Manures were requested as set dressing for the fourth episode; during recording on 12 February, the seaweed emanated an overpowering vegetable smell under the hot studio lights.[24] William Russell was absent from rehearsals for the fifth episode on 16 February to film for the subsequent serial, The Crusade. Hartnell's granddaughter Judith Carney (later Jessica Carney) visited the studio during the fifth episode's recording on 19 February.[24] The final episode was recorded on 26 February, and the session overran by 15 minutes due partly to sound problems necessitating a major retake.[36] For the final episode, the crew treated the set more carelessly to achieve the damaged look they were seeking, as they knew it would not be used again.[37] Throughout filming of the serial, at the insistence of Lambert, Martin avoided showing much detail for the more brutal visuals, such as deaths; Lambert retrospectively cited criticism that the crew received for a violent scene in The Edge of Destruction (1964) as her reasoning.[38]

Reception

Broadcast and ratings

EpisodeTitleRun timeOriginal air dateUK viewers
(millions)		Appreciation Index
1"The Web Planet"23:5713 February 1965 (1965-02-13)13.556
2"The Zarbi"23:2020 February 1965 (1965-02-20)12.553
3"Escape to Danger"22:5227 February 1965 (1965-02-27)12.553
4"Crater of Needles"25:506 March 1965 (1965-03-06)13.049
5"Invasion"26:0413 March 1965 (1965-03-13)12.048
6"The Centre"24:2820 March 1965 (1965-03-20)11.542

A special trailer for The Web Planet, filmed on 4 February 1965, features the Zarbi arriving at the

BBC1 on 6 February 1965, upset Martin, who felt that it undersold his work and made him feel "like a conjurer about to do an elaborate two and a half hour trick when all the audience know the secrets already"; Lambert responded that the comedic trailer was intentional to take "the curse out of the Zarbi" for younger viewers.[39] The serial was broadcast on BBC1 in six weekly parts from 13 February to 20 March 1965.[40][41] Viewership increased from the preceding serial, reaching a series-high of 13.5 million viewers for the first episode. The ratings dropped for the following episodes, with the final two hitting 12 million, but they were still considered successful, ranking among the top 20 programmes for each week; the first episode ranked joint 18th in the national charts, with an estimated viewership of 5.45 million households.[40] The Appreciation Index began well but fell rapidly, dropping below 50 for the first time; the final episode set a new record low of 42.[1]

The serial was believed to have been

UK Gold in December 1992 alongside a compilation version.[41]

Critical response

The first episode was criticised by Peter Black of the

The Stage and Television Today described the lighting effects as "pointless and annoying".[40] Following the fifth episode, the Sunday Mirror received a complaint from A. N. Thompson that the show was "slipping" due to its newly-comedic nature.[44] At the BBC Programme Review Board in March 1965, Alasdair Milne said that the series was "difficult to follow, unless one watched every edition";[45] at the following Review Board, controller of programmes Huw Wheldon said that the serial was going well, while BBC1 controller Michael Peacock felt that the series had too much "mumbo-jumbo" and that the character names were difficult to follow.[1] In April, The Scotsman's Peggie Phillips considered the serial to be a flop.[40] An audience report prepared following the serial's broadcast indicated satisfaction with its conclusion and choreography, but confusion regarding the action and criticism of the costumes and blurred lens.[1]

Retrospective reviews were mixed. In

good versus evil.[3] In 2009, Den of Geek's Cliff Chapman ranked The Web Planet among the most underrated classic Doctor Who serials, noting that it "is a joy for being so different" even if "the ambition might outstrip the execution".[47] In 2012, Neela Debnath of The Independent found the story "enjoyable" with ambitious writing that "lacks impact given the poor quality of the visuals".[48] In 2015, Twelfth Doctor actor Peter Capaldi said that "the ambition and imagination was great but they just didn't have the resources to deliver".[49]

Commercial releases

The Zarbi received several pieces of merchandise as toy manufacturers hoped that they would become as popular as the Daleks; they featured in several comic strips and in related merchandising in 1965.

Demon Records on 13 December 2019, with linking narration by Maureen O'Brien.[52] The serial was released on Blu-ray on 5 December 2022, alongside the rest of the show's second season as part of The Collection.[53][54]

In print

Doctor Who and the Zarbi
ISBN
0-426-10129-4

Strutton was approached by

Chris Achilleos; Achilleos was disappointed by the BBC's insistence that the cover artwork resemble the television counterpart. The Target paperback was reissued several times: with a revised logo in August 1978, with Alister Pearson's artwork in January 1990,[50] and by BBC Books in April 2016 with Achilleos's cover and Wood's illustrations.[51]

A

Unieboek BV Bussum in 1974; and Doutor Who e os Zarbi, translated to Portuguese by Eduardo Nogueira and Conceicao Jardim with cover art by Rui Ligeiro, was published by Presenca in 1986.[50]

Notes

  1. Les Structures Sonores[4]
  2. ^ Martin eventually cast Purves as Morton Dill—and later as companion Steven Taylor—in The Chase (1965).[20][21]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wright 2017, p. 141.
  2. ^ a b Muir 1999, p. 104–105.
  3. ^ a b Braxton, Mark (21 December 2008). "The Web Planet". Radio Times. BBC Magazines. Archived from the original on 3 March 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  4. ^ a b Wright 2017, pp. 128–129.
  5. ^ Bentham 1986, p. 221.
  6. ^ a b Wright 2017, p. 120.
  7. ^ a b Wright 2017, p. 123.
  8. ^ Wright 2017, p. 136.
  9. ^ a b Howe & Walker 1998, p. 77.
  10. ^ a b Wright 2017, p. 121.
  11. ^ a b Wright 2017, p. 122.
  12. ^ Beech 2005, 5:21.
  13. ^ a b c d Wright 2017, p. 124.
  14. ^ Beech 2005, 12:26.
  15. ^ Wright 2017, p. 134.
  16. ^ a b Howe, Stammers & Walker 1994, p. 92.
  17. ^ a b Wright 2017, p. 139.
  18. ^ Beech 2005, 4:25.
  19. ^ a b Howe & Walker 1998, p. 78.
  20. ^ Ainsworth 2016, p. 93.
  21. ^ Ainsworth 2016, p. 96.
  22. ^ Beech 2005, 15:06.
  23. ^ Wright 2017, pp. 132–133.
  24. ^ a b c Wright 2017, p. 133.
  25. ^ Wright 2017, p. 126.
  26. ^ a b c Wright 2017, p. 132.
  27. ^ a b Wright 2017, p. 128.
  28. ^ Wright 2017, p. 125.
  29. ^ Wright 2017, pp. 125–126.
  30. ^ Beech 2005, 8:22.
  31. ^ Wright 2017, p. 127.
  32. ^ Wright 2017, p. 98.
  33. ^ Wright 2017, p. 130.
  34. ^ Wright 2017, pp. 130–131.
  35. ^ a b Wright 2017, p. 131.
  36. ^ Wright 2017, p. 135.
  37. ^ Beech 2005, 11:12.
  38. ^ Beech 2005, 34:03.
  39. ^ Wright 2017, p. 137.
  40. ^ a b c d e f g Wright 2017, p. 138.
  41. ^ a b Wright 2017, p. 142.
  42. ^ Molesworth 2010, pp. 316.
  43. ^ Molesworth 2010, pp. 419.
  44. Newspapers.com
    .
  45. ^ Wright 2017, p. 140.
  46. ^ Cornell, Day & Topping 1995.
  47. ^ Chapman, Cliff (6 July 2009). "Ten Under-rated Classic Doctor Who Stories". Den of Geek. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  48. ^ Debnath, Neela (28 February 2012). "Review of Doctor Who 'The Web Planet' (Series 2)". The Independent. Archived from the original on 29 February 2012. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  49. ^ Barbosa, José (30 November 2015). "Television: Peter Capaldi Nerds Out On His Favorite Doctor Who Episodes". The Spinoff. Archived from the original on 29 April 2017. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  50. ^ a b c Wright 2017, p. 143.
  51. ^ a b c d Wright 2017, p. 144.
  52. DoctorWho.tv. BBC Studios. 11 November 2019. Archived
    from the original on 22 September 2020. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  53. ^ Jeffery, Morgan (16 August 2022). "Doctor Who's Maureen O'Brien reprises Vicki role after almost 60 years". Radio Times. Immediate Media Company. Archived from the original on 16 August 2022. Retrieved 11 September 2022.
  54. ^ "The Collection: Season 2". The TARDIS Library. Archived from the original on 14 November 2022. Retrieved 8 December 2022.

DVD resources

  • Beech, Andrew (producer) (2005). Tales of Isop (DVD documentary).
    2 Entertain
    .

Bibliography

External links

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