In its first two serials, Doctor Who introduced its main characters and one of the series' most significant villains. What could possibly follow "An Unearthly Child" and "The Daleks"? As it turns out, the answer is a two-part serial called "The Edge of Destruction" that is... very different from what came before it.
The BBC had given Doctor Who thirteen episodes to prove its worth. The first two serials, with four and seven parts respectively, only added up to eleven, requiring a short two-parter to fill the gap. According to the serial's writer and producer, "The Edge of Destruction" was a rushed script with almost no budget, which explains why it breaks from the traditional Classic Who format.
The third serial includes two episodes: "The Edge of Destruction" and "The Brink of Disaster." These episodes first aired on Feb 8 and 15, 1964. The resulting story was hard to follow, but it acknowledged the desperate need for the TARDIS residents to form actual relationships with one another.
"The Edge of Destruction" Plot
As shown at the end of "The Daleks" serial, the TARDIS is shaken by an explosion, knocking all of its inhabitants unconscious. They begin to wake up, starting with Barbara, then Susan, then Ian, and finally, the Doctor. All are acting out of character, with strange memories, but the Doctor is the worst off, suffering from a head injury.
Susan leaves the room to get first aid for him and returns to find the TARDIS doors open. She believes something must have come inside, but the doors close and then open again without any clear provocation. When she moves to try the controls, she collapses. Ian takes her to bed and goes to get her some water, but returns to find her waiting for him with scissors. After a brief internal struggle, she begins stabbing the bed.
Meanwhile, the Doctor is intent on figuring out what has happened. He and Ian suspect that there must be something physically wrong with the ship. Barbara theorizes that something sentient may have gotten on board, but the Doctor dismisses the idea as illogical. While they argue, Susan steals back the scissors.
Ian and the Doctor decide to check the TARDIS's fault locator to see what is wrong with the ship, and the women talk. They theorize that if something did get onto the ship, it must be hiding inside one of them. Susan seems the most likely suspect, as she's acting like she was possessed. Ian comes to tell them that nothing is wrong with the ship, but when he mentions that the Doctor was going to turn the scanner on, Susan begins yelling for him not to touch the controls.
The Doctor manages to turn on the scanner, but the image shown isn't accurate. It's actually a photograph. The doors open and shut, and a new photograph appears on the screen. Barbara recognizes that the location shown this time was from one of their previous adventures, and the Doctor mentions that the TARDIS records their journeys in a memory base.
He then accuses Ian and Barbara of attacking him and Susan to tamper with the controls. In his mind, this is all part of a plot to take them home. But Barbara calls him out, telling him that he would be dead by now if not for her and Ian's actions. The argument is interrupted by them suddenly becoming frightened by devices that measure time.
The Doctor decides to fix the situation by having everyone go to sleep for the night, covertly offering them sedative drinks. He and Ian bicker, while Susan apologizes to Barbara for the Doctor's accusations. Once all three seem to have fallen asleep, the Doctor heads for the controls only to be attacked from behind.
It turns out that Ian was the one who attacked the Doctor, but he collapses soon after the Doctor pushes him away. This confirms for the Doctor that Ian and Barbara are trying to take over the ship. While Barbara argues against him, Susan seems to agree that they are the problem. But when the Doctor says he'll treat them like enemies, Susan switches sides again, pleading for the Doctor to listen to her teachers.
No matter what they say, the Doctor seems convinced that he needs to kick the humans out of the TARDIS. But as he attempts it, an alarm sounds, with the fault indicator now saying that everything is wrong with the ship. Ian is still acting erratically, but it's to keep the rest of the group away from the controls, which he says are alive.
Suddenly, the Doctor has a completely different perspective, claiming that they are all in danger and must work together. He predicts that they only have ten minutes left to live, which sends Susan into hysterics. But Barbara starts putting clues together, arguing that the odd string of events were signs from some sentient part of the TARDIS to get their attention.
The Doctor initially rejects the idea, because he believes the ship would only be trying to get their attention if its power was on the brink of escaping. That power would have been strong enough to destroy them all, so he won't accept it as an option. He believes there is no hope, but Barbara wants to investigate why one control (the scanner) would still be safe.
The doors open again, and Susan begins to panic because there is nothing beyond them. But Barbara points out a pattern in the scanner images, and the Doctor realizes that they are witnessing the creation of a solar system. He says that he used the "fast return switch" in an attempt to get back to Earth, which accidentally took them back to the planet's creation.
Susan notes that the fast return switch is next to the scanner switch, which must have been a clue about where they should be looking. The fast return switch is supposed to be pressed and then released, but the spring broke, making the switch get stuck. After fiddling with it, everything goes back to normal.
While everything is technically fixed, Susan points out that the Doctor said horrible things about Ian and Barbara. He admits that Barbara was correct about everything but doesn't actually apologize for his behavior. They have another talk, where the Doctor assures her that he sees her value, and they make up. The episode ends with the four exiting the TARDIS to play in the snow.
Overall Review
Various books on Doctor Who's history have explained that this story was deliberately written as filler, because the crew didn't know if the show would receive a full production order. But while the episode itself certainly feels less thought-out than its predecessors, it arguably includes the most important character moments thus far.
The story itself is just weird. It's enjoyable to watch and try to crack the mysteries, but the pieces never really fall into place. Both Susan and Ian act like they are possessed at different points, but that is never properly addressed. More than that, the entire concept of the "fast return switch" is brought up at the end just to wrap up the confusion.
This is not a well-plotted mystery, nor is it a story building up to a satisfying plot twist. It's really just confusion for confusion's sake, cleared up in an arbitrary manner. But that's somewhat okay, because the real value of the serial is in how the characters react to such a chaotic situation. The Doctor immediately gives in to paranoia and attacks Ian and Barbara, airing all his grievances against them and attempting to put them in a life-threatening situation.
The version of the Doctor that has been presented thus far in the show is a man who sees himself as superior to those around him, who makes snap judgments that could easily get himself or others killed. This episode highlights those character flaws and makes an attempt to fix them. Barbara is the one who figures out what is actually going on with the ship, and she is the one who the Doctor must make amends with before they can move forward.
While it happens too quickly and nonsensically, the Doctor is called out for his superiority complex, and he has to face some consequences for it. He had given Ian some respect in previous serials for his scientific mind and physical prowess, but "The Edge of Destruction" makes him finally see the value in Barbara as well.
I don't personally think that this was done well enough. He quite literally went from being willing to kill Ian and Barbara to making up with them in about twenty minutes. I wasn't sufficiently assured that he did learn his lesson in that time, and I certainly didn't see enough of a change in behavior for Barbara to have forgiven him. But whether it was effective or not, the serial brought those tensions to a head and forged a stronger relationship between the characters for the future, which was what it needed to do.
Commentary in the context of modern Doctor Who
In addition to helping move the Doctor from the distant, callous man of his first two serials closer to the caring Time Lord we know today, "The Edge of Destruction" introduced a few concepts that fans of the revival might be surprised by. For example, Ian mentions that the Doctor's heart is fine, which would imply that, at this point in the series, he only had one.
That seems to be a pretty straightforward case of the writers coming up with the idea of two hearts later in the show's development. But the details about the TARDIS are a bit more interesting to examine. Susan gets upset by the idea that the ship might have crashed, claiming that it's impossible. That's fun to hear, since the TARDIS crashes frequently in the modern day. But this was before the Doctor leaned into his more adventurous sides.
Later in the episode, the Doctor mentions the TARDIS having a memory bank, using images of their previous adventures as a warning. That ties in well with the recent introduction of the Memory TARDIS, from the episode "Empire of Death" and the Tales of the TARDIS spin-off. Perhaps the TARDIS's memory bank is what allowed the Memory TARDIS to exist to begin with.
Of course, the biggest innovation from this story is the idea that the ship has some level of sentience. While the Doctor originally argues that "My machine can't think," it does turn out that the ship was aware of the problem and attempting to communicate it to the passengers. This idea will obviously require a lot of expansion before it gets to the state seen in the revival (and particularly the version presented in "The Doctor's Wife"), but it is moving in that direction.
Although the episodes were not the strongest on their own, they moved the characters and world building forward, closer to a state that modern fans would recognize.
Overall Rating: 6/10. "The Edge of Destruction" addressed the need for conflict and reconciliation between the Doctor and his first human companions, but it did so in a way that was unnecessarily complicated and then dismissed too quickly to be satisfying.