Hilio, the Menoptra have no wisdom for war. Before the Animus came, the flower forests covered the planet in a cocoon of peace. Our ancestors carved temples like this, for resting places for our dead, but that was all the work we did.--Hrostar
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"The Web Planet", 13 February 1965
"The Zarbi", 20 February 1965
"Escape to Danger", 27 February 1965
"Crater of Needles", 6 March 1965
"Invasion", 13 March 1965
"The Centre", 20 March 1965
Written by Bill Strutton
Directed by Richard Martin
Script editor: Dennis Spooner
Produced by Verity Lambert
William Hartnell as the Doctor
William Russell as Ian Chesterton
Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright
Maureen O'Brien as Vicki
From a standpoint of production design, the "The Web Planet" might just be the most ambitious story Doctor Who has ever attempted--certainly, the most ambitious of the surviving stories from the 1960s. We get a multiplicity of touches intended to make us feel like Vortis is a truly alien planet: streaks of Vaseline are smeared across the camera to make the planet look like it's bathed in otherworldly light, fog is pumped across the floor, and there's an echo on all the dialogue to highlight the thin atmosphere.
All three of the alien species that inhabit Vortis have had a great deal of effort expended on being made to look as alien as possible, through costume, movement and voice. They're all man-sized versions of bugs: the Zarbi are giant ants, the Menoptra are giant bees and the Optera are giant grubs. The Menoptra even convert the TARDIS team's names into versions pronounceable in their own language, calling Barbara "Harberra" and Ian "Heron".
It's a shame, then, that ultimately, it all fails.
The Vaseline on the camera keeps making you want to squint to bring it all into focus, even though that won't work. The Menoptra's dancing movements and singsong voices become more annoying as the serial draws on. The Optera hopping around (and the Doctor's bizarre attempts at communicating with the Zarbi by gesture) are so comical that it becomes impossible to take anything seriously. By the time you've slogged your way through all six episodes of "The Web Planet", you're really just glad it's over.
Some force captures the TARDIS in flight and forces it to materialise on the planet Vortis. The Doctor and Ian go outside to explore the blasted, rocky landscape, while Barbara stays inside to tend to Vicki, who has been taken faint by some element of Vortis. There's a cute scene where Vicki (who's from the 26th century) reacts with suspicion to Barbara's insistence that she take some aspirin, calling it "mediaeval medicine", and is surprised to learn that Barbara teaches high-school history when history is a subject that should be mastered by small children.
Outside on the planet's surface, Ian and the Doctor have made a few interesting discoveries. Ian pulls out his gold pen to allow the Doctor to make a note, and the pen vanishes out of his hand--the Doctor theorises there must be something in the atmosphere that reacts with gold. They also discover that what appear at first to be springs of water are actually springs of acid.
Back at the TARDIS, Barbara is still wearing the gold bracelet Nero gave her, and suddenly some force takes control of the arm on which she's wearing it. The TARDIS doors open, and Barbara falls into a deep trance. Led by her possessed wrist, she walks out onto the planet's surface.
Ian and the Doctor hear her scream, but when they return to the TARDIS's landing site, there's no sign of her. Nor is there any sign of the TARDIS: something has dragged it away. That something turns out to be the Zarbi, a race of giant ants who communicate only in unintelligible electronic trills. The actors in the Zarbi costumes all walk bent at the waist to simulate the idea that they're walking on all fours (or all sixes, I suppose). A herd of Zarbi appear and capture Ian and the Doctor, then lead them off.
Barbara, meanwhile, is still walking in her trance across the planet's surface. She's intercepted by a group of Menoptra, who shepherd her into a cave and remove the bracelet from her wrist, breaking the trance. The Menoptra explain that the Animus, the alien being who rules Vortis, can use gold to control other beings telepathically. These three Menoptra are a scouting party, travelling in advance of a larger invasion force who will soon arrive to attempt to destroy the Animus and conquer Vortis.
The Menoptra dance gracefully across the floor, and when they speak, they hold their forearms in front of them with their palms facing upward, and their voices lilt melodically. It's impossible to take them seriously. A debate now ensues amongst them over whether they can trust Barbara; if they can't, she has to be killed. Rather than staying to find out the verdict, Barbara waits till they're not paying attention to her, then dashes out onto the planet's surface.
She's ambushed by a Zarbi patrol, who place a harness made of gold on her shoulders, bringing her back under the Animus's control. So enthralled, she leads the Zarbi straight to the Menoptra's cave, where the Zarbi attack the Menoptra scouts. Most of the scouts are killed. Barbara and a Menoptra named Hrostar are the only survivors; imprisoned, they're led away to be used as slave labour.
Ian and the Doctor are taken to the Carsinome, a dark, twisting warren of tunnels that seems to be the lair of the Animus and the Zarbi--in fact, the Animus's consciousness seems present throughout the Carsinome (a name I love). In a chamber in its bowels, they find Vicki and the TARDIS.
The Doctor is able to communicate with the Animus through communications device that descends from the ceiling, though no one is allowed to see her. She informs him that Barbara has been captured and put to work in the Crater of Needles, and also tells him that she knows of the planned Menoptra invasion, but does not know when it will arrive. The Doctor offers to use his astral map to help her locate the approaching invaders, but tells her that her surveillance of the TARDIS is interfering with the map's functioning. Reluctantly, the Animus turns off her awareness of the chamber where they're being held, and Ian takes the opportunity to escape the Carsinome, heading for the Crater of Needles to rescue Barbara.
On the way, he meets a Menoptra named Vrestin, another survivor of the Zarbi's attack on the scouting party. From Vrestin, he learns that the Menoptra were the original inhabitants of Vortis. The world was a paradise of flower forests then; the Menoptera buzzed above them, while the Zarbi, cattle-like, lived on the ground. The Carsinome appeared and grew slowly, with the Animus at its heart; the Menoptra did not take notice of it until it was too late. Their invasion force is returning now, because if they wait much longer, the Carsinome will cover the whole planet.
Ian and Vrestin are found by the Zarbi, but they escape from them down an underground tunnel. Underground, they encounter the Optera, the planet's grub-like race, who move around by hopping on their single leg. (It's as ridiculous as it sounds.) Ian realises that the Optera are descendants of Menoptra who fled underground, and over the generations evolved to live down there, losing the ability of flight. Though the Optera, suspicious of those who live "in the Light", are initially inclined to execute Ian and Vrestin, they're soon persuaded instead to join the fight against the Animus.
Barbara and Hrostar have been put to work in the Crater of Needles. Hrostar, and all the other Menoptra there, have had their wings torn off to stop them from escaping. It's a wonderful touch: a visible reminder that, even if the Animus is beaten, many of the Menoptra will still be crippled for life.
When the Zarbi guarding over them are suddenly called away (the Doctor has picked up Menoptra radio signals on his astral map and told the Animus that the invasion is about to begin), Barbara and Hrostar are able to escape, climbing out of the Crater and onto the plateau, where the troops of the Menoptra invasion spearhead are starting to land. But the spearhead are ambushed by the Zarbi and massacred; only a handful of Menoptra, including Barbara, Hrostar, and the spearhead leader Hilio, escape, taking refuge in a cave that turns out to be an abandoned Menoptra temple from the days before the Animus.
The survivors are now hopelessly outnumbered, but they have two things on their side: the "isop-tope", a bomb that will destroy the Animus if they can get close enough to her, and a Zarbi that they're able to control telepathically using the power of the Doctor's magic ring. (It's never actually called "magic", but we've never heard of it before, never hear of it again, and the Doctor explicitly refuses to discuss how it works. So. Magic.)
They therefore decide they must attempt to infiltrate the Carsinome and destroy the Animus. They're able to gain entrance using their captured Zarbi, and then make their way to the central lair, where the great, tentacled mass of the Animus is located. There, they find the Doctor and Vicki, who have been imprisoned. But the presence of the Animus somehow mesmerises our three heroes, who all start to fall asleep; and Menoptra, being insects, are drawn insatiably towards its core, because it emits light.
The day is saved when Ian, Vrestin and the Optera break into the ceremonial chamber, tunnelling up from below. This disturbance lets Barbara get enough of a grip back on her senses to drop the isop-tope into the Animus's innards, killing the alien being. The Carsinome starts to disintegrate; the Zarbi return to their normal, bovine-like state; the springs of acid once more become springs of water. With the planet slowly recovering, the TARDIS crew depart.
What Lisa thought
Lisa pretty much agreed with me that the serial ultimately fails as a story. It's unfortunate that narratively, it's essentially a rehash of "The Daleks": the TARDIS materialises in what was once a verdant forest, but is now a blasted landscape. The first episode is spent without alien contact, as our heroes spend their time either in the TARDIS or exploring the terrain nearby. The team discover the carcass of a small animal, which provides them a clue to the nature of the plot: in "The Daleks", it's the creature that's been fossilised into stone by the atomic blast; here, it's the abandoned exoskeleton of a giant larva that has moulted. We ultimately learn that the planet's peaceful, agrarian inhabitants are being threatened by an implacable, industrialising enemy. The final, against-all-odds assault on the enemy is spread out over two or three episodes, as the TARDIS team and their native allies are required to split into groups and approach the enemy stronghold from different directions. There's even the open liquid on the planet's surface turning out to be pools of acid, which, while not from "The Daleks", is from another Terry Nation-penned story, "The Keys of Marinus".
Though, Lisa was willing to concede one thing: through all the screen time Barbara got in this story, she didn't find her annoying. I guess she's finally warming up to her, two stories before her departure.
The next story is "The Crusade", in which Barbara is captured for Saladin's harem and Ian is knighted by Richard the Lionhearted, but two of its four episodes are missing. Therefore, the next story in our rewatch will be "The Space Museum".
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