The Wheel In Space (1968) Review

Are you incapable of speaking without flapping your arms about?

The Wheel In Space was an excellent Cyberstory. It had atmosphere, build-up and the new companion is one of the greatest yet.

PLOT

After running out of mercury(for real, this time), the TARDIS makes an emergency landing on an abandoned rocket. Soon, the Doctor and Jamie find themselves on the Wheel, a space station that... is in space. And the Cybermen sneak around once more.

Space being far more empty than the moon, the Wheel has actual personality(and it was really cool to see it in the intro). But by far, the best part of the story was the bottle episode at the start, which just has the Doctor and Jamie investigate the Silver Carrier. Very mysterious and spooky. I'd love to see it restored.

CHARACTERS

Patrick Troughton was charming as always. I really liked the way he first studied the Wheel before taking charge and also his determination to defeat the Cybermen even if it should cost human lives.

I honestly don't know why everyone picks on Zoe in this story, given that she's presented with a very pleasant, enthusiastic personality. Or maybe it's just the actress. In any case, Zoe is the cutest girl yet(in Classic Who), and given what we've seen, that's saying a lot. I liked the bantering between her and Jamie.

The international cast is getting old. While the Russian lady was very charming, her American friend just drove me nuts every episode.
The Controller's mental breakdown(is this the third time?) was unique, so kudos to David Whittaker!
I liked the CMO, Gemma. Nice doctors are always nice to have.

NOTES

*Troughton pulls a Hartnell and gets knocked out for an episode.

*That Time Vector Generator is really handy, isn't it? It can contain the TARDIS interior, it can shoot ray beams and radio beams and even upgrade a laser cannon.

*The mercury aspect of the story is a nice bit of continuity. Nowadays, it'd be nothing special, but you don't really expect Classic Who to pay so much attention to itself. Again, Whittaker is awesome.

*I've heard Zoe is from the 21st century, so I guess that's the time period here. In that case, how come no one's heard of the Cybermen? Also, if this is another survivor ship from Mondas, how do they know of the Doctor, especially the Second one? There's no way the guys from The Moonbase survived to tell the tale.

*Wouldn't it be smarter for the Cyberships to spread out and start over instead of trying to attack Earth? What have they been doing since the 1980s anyway?

*The Cyber-Planner is epic, but I really hope they get rid of the old voice once and for all. Also, why does it ask for the Doctor's name if it knows him already?

*The Cyber-plan is pretty clever, but really hard to follow. First they bust up the laser and send the meteorites against the base so the staff would get the bernalium from the Silver Carrier so they could sneak in and then repair the laser again so they wouldn't be blown to smithereens along with everyone else.

*I almost feel like I have to read The Wheel Of Ice again, just to see all the references to this story again. It's practically a sequel to this. I highly recommend it for the imaginative sci-fi writing(think 2001: A Space Odyssey-style Doctor Who).

*Jamie did not just threaten to spank Zoe...

*If Jamie thought of the name John Smith and the Doctor's obviously never used it before, how did the First Doctor have a library card with that name, as seen in Vampires In Venice? And why was the Eleventh Doctor even carrying it around? Also, would the paranoid First Doctor really write the real location of the TARDIS on the card? Woops, nitpicking the wrong story.

*Why don't the Cybermen use hypnosis all the time?

*Reusing costumes from the previous story is just lazy. Surely you have something lying around! It's black and white too, for heaven's sake!

*I can't imagine how the Cybermats became popular. They're just silly.

*Should I watch The Evil Of The Daleks all over again?

*I would've preferred if the Doctor just had a discussion with Zoe of the dangers ahead. Or used the Time-Space Visualiser(anyone remember that?).

CONCLUSION

A fantastic and well written, but quite a slow story. The Cybermen are working in the background in this one, using Cybermats and controlled humans in their stead. So it probably won't appeal to die-hard BUS fans. Nevertheless, I'd call it the best Troughton story featuring the Cybermen.