10 Classic Doctor Who Absurdities New Fans Won’t Believe
10. The (Wrong) End Of Time
When examining the First Doctors adventures, its tempting to point all the way back to the pilot and his apparent desire to stave a troublesome cavemans head in with a rock. But had more episodes not been commissioned, the Hartnell era might well have ended with an intense, surreal episode set entirely inside the TARDIS. (More on the caveman later.) The Edge of Destruction, as its generally referred to, was a two-parter designed to round out the season with a minimal budget. It gives us our first good look at the TARDIS interior, showing eating and rest areas it also happens to be a trippy, nightmarish event with our characters becoming increasingly weird and irrational. People lose their memories, paranoia sets in at the perceived threat of some invasive alien force and the TARDISs doors open and close with seemingly deliberate malice. The most chilling performance comes from Carole Ann Ford; having damseled her way through the past dozen weeks by screaming and falling over a lot, she spends much of the episode stalking the crew, dream-like, with a pair of scissors. By the time all the clocks on board start melting, the audience of 1963 mustve been glancing suspiciously at their beef dripping. Eventually the source of the strangeness is revealed the TARDISs fast return switch has become stuck, sending it hurtling endlessly backwards through time, and the strange occurrences were the ships own attempt to draw attention to the problem. Small wonder the Doctor installed a holographic interface in later year. Half a century later, this remains one of the shows most unnerving adventures, and theres not a single monster in sight.
