Clangers in Who

Originally published Mistfall issue 11, September 1993

by Robert Moss

Every show has its funny moments (well, alright, every show except Red Dwarf). Some are deliberately humourous, some are just laughably bad.

Many of today's clangers are the result of improvements in television technology, such as the appalling CSO lines in the Pertwee era, where the characters often looked as though they had been eating Uranium sandwiches in the BBC canteen. However, most of Doctor Who 's direst moments are just inexcusably bad, and The Horns of Nimon is a good example. Not surprisingly, Graham Crowden was never given a second chance after he chortled his way through his own death scene. This is an understandable faux pas however -- maybe he was in the TARDIS and heard the sound made when the console blew up in part two.

Every era has its own set of incidents which bring BBC executives to their knees with embarrassment. The Hartnell tenure boasts that classic scene from The Web Planet where the Zarbi (a ridiculous enough creature at the best of times) plods straight into the camera. The resulting thud and picture are, mercifully, preserved on film forever.

Also preserved on film (in one of the few Troughton episodes that are) is an all-time classic turkey. I shall just utter those words "Nussink in ze vorld can shtop me now!" and leave it at that. Pertwee too is blessed with awful bits -- viz the Ogron-eating blob monster from Frontier in Space, and of course the less said about those dinosaurs the better.

Tom Baker, being the longest-serving Doctor, has more than his fair share of clangers. Who can keep a straight face whilst watching the Doctor perform oral activities on The Creature from the Pit? Or when the Robot from the story of the same name is threatened by a particularly unconvincing model tank? And has anyone else noticed during the climax of Destiny of the Daleks, when the Daleks are destroyed en route to the Movellan ship? Three of them mysteriously disappear just before the bombs go off! Look closely at the group of six -- you'll need the slow-motion button here, guys and gals! Bit of cost-cutting there, eh, Auntie Beeb?

For Davison, I'll just say Time-Flight and Adric, and for Colin, I'll draw your attention to Timelash, and the terrifying Muppet... err, Bandril Ambassador. And I think that Paradise Towers and The Happiness Patrol are best left unmentioned, don't you?

However, as well as the recognised clangers, there are the classics with "clangering" tendencies -- such as Tomb of the Cybermen 's Toberman, the original "puppet on a string". Need I refer you to Spearhead from Space part four, Doctor Jon's hilarious wrestling bout with the rubber octopus tentacle? Or the detergent bottle spaceship graveyard from The Brain of Morbius? Or the whole of part seven of The Daleks Masterplan?

And isn't it sad that, during rehearsals for The Evil of the Daleks, the line was cut where Jamie says of the Emperor Dalek, "Look at the size of the balls on that, Doctor!"...?

Then again, perhaps not...