Doctor Who (TV Series) The Wheel in Space: Episode 1 (1968) User Reviews

Fun but not entirely Wheel-istic!

[A_Kind_Of_CineMagic · 8/10 · 17 September 2014]

Review of all 6 episodes:

This is a fun and mostly decent standard production providing tense and exciting Cybermen attacks and the arrival of a good new companion Zoe. (Previous companion Victoria having just left and featuring only in a clip at the start of Episode 1)

This story is written by David Whitaker from a story by Kit Pedler. Whitaker's script provides good dialogue and tense scenes but Pedler's plot is unremarkable and does not all make sense sadly. Some of the science is not as realistic as it could be (the meteorite sequences etc) and the Cybermen's plan is not entirely sensible or believable. It is not as awful as some would have you believe and the issues certainly do not make it a totally unsuccessful story but they do take the silver sheen off of some of this adventure as it lacks a bit of credibility and originality. It still is mostly solid, entertaining stuff. Part 5 is the least good featuring more of the silly aspects.

The Wheel in Space is largely an enjoyable romp with some excellent elements but it is unexceptional and looks weak by comparison to the truly brilliant stories preceding it in season 5. The Cybermen voices are, in my opinion, far inferior to their original voices from The Tenth Planet or from some of their later incarnations.

My Ratings: Episodes 1, 2, 3 & 6 - 7.5/10, Episode 4 - 8/10, Episode 5 - 6/10

Overall: 7.33/10

The rest of Season 5 was far better than this rather anticlimactic final story. Easily one of my top 5 Doctor Who Seasons of all time, truly fantastic quality.

Season 5 Average Rating: 9.26/10

Ominous space music - One of the most descriptive and legendary subtitles I've ever read.

[laurawanco · 4/10 · 24 May 2021]

I don't really have much to say about this one (hell I was gonna just not review it, but the completionist in me is too strong). This story would be nothing more than forgettable if not for a few things showing up for the first time and some fun interactions. Like Jamie not understanding recordings, or much of anything for that matter, he's great. Again some of the one off side characters are getting more personality, but I found some of them genuinely funny which was a nice surprise. The Cybermats get a lot more to do here, and more of an explanation of what they do. There's also some nice moments where Jamie and the Doctor just talk about Victoria leaving that I really enjoyed and wish they went into a bit more. As for the first time for things the Doctor is called John Smith for the first time, I always love seeing where things like that start and learning that Jamie came up with it makes it even better. Then of course there's Zoe, I like her, but I don't think as much as most do. Don't get me wrong, she's awesome, but I honestly think I like all 3 TARDIS teams from this era. She's smart, independent, while still acknowledging she has a lot to learn about people which sets up her arc really well. She mostly works off of Jamie here and I love the dynamic of her being a genius and Jamie not having a clue about anything. Have I mentioned that I love Jamie enough yet? As her time in the TARDIS goes on she really starts to bond with the Doctor due to her really matching wits with him on some things. Overall this is still a pretty forgettable story that's yet another case of this show stretching out plot more than necessary, but there are some redeeming aspects to it.

It's an incredibly slow start.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 5/10 · 27 February 2021]

Janie is upset at Victoria's decision to stay on Earth with The Harris family, The Doctor takes Jamie on another adventure..... on board a space station.

It's an average first episode at best, for the most part it's a straight two hander between The Doctor and Jamie, with the pair chatting about nothing. Jamie going to sleep just about sums it up. The Servo Robot doesn't appear to be the greatest addition.

I'd you're still awake, look out for a young Donald Sumpter, who's one of the crew at the latter part of the episode.

The series began with a Cyberman story, and concluded here with another. Sadly this one isn't a patch on Tomb of The Cybermen.

Were they a little guilty of overusing the Cybermen? Not sure, they had a winning formula, but this was a dull first episode.

Thanks to Britbox I'm able to watch this with some tele-snaps and linking text, it's not one I listen to regularly on audio, I find it pretty dull. The pictures make it a bit better to follow.

Is this a story they're likely to animate very soon? It doesn't seem very likely somehow.

5/10.

What the Heck was this?

[wetmars · 1/10 · 16 December 2020]

The TARDIS materialises on board a spaceship, the Silver Carrier, where the Second Doctor and Jamie are attacked by a servo robot. Jamie contacts a nearby space station known as the Wheel and they are rescued. Meanwhile, the Silver Carrier discharges Cybermats, which also travel to and enter the station. These pave the way for the invasion of the station by Cybermen, who intend to use its direct radio link with Earth as a beacon for their invasion fleet.

The Doctor sends Jamie and a young woman named Zoe Heriot over to the Silver Carrier to fetch the TARDIS' vector generator rod. Meanwhile, he frees the Wheel's crew from the Cybermen's hypnotic control and aims to destroy all the Cybermen on the station.

When Jamie and Zoe return, the Doctor installs the rod in the station's X-ray laser, making it powerful enough to destroy the Cyber-fleet. An approaching force of space-walking Cybermen is also vanquished.

Review of all six episodes -

I hate this story. The Cybermen's plan made no sense. The pace was super slow, just a boring and dull story. Let's talk about the good first.

Troughton's performance was one thing, also a nice little callback to the Daleks! Enjoy that moment as well the original Cyber-Planner, way better than those wacky Cybermen voices, dear god. Even that moment where Zoe was making fun of Jamie because he was wearing "female garments!" lol. Even when that John Smith moment happened.

Now the bad, the Cybermen do nothing. The story would have been better if they used any other monster, picked up the slow pacing, the sets looked boring, about the Cybermen's plan, a pal of mine said that their plan was "absolutely ridiculously convoluted" which I can agree with, to invade a Space Station and use Cyber-mats to help them? Damn, it's going to be a pain reviewing Revenge of the Cybermen, Attack of the Cybermen, and especially Silver Nemesis. That Cybermen floating scene was too embarrassing for me, like what the hell am I watching?

As for Zoe, I do not like her at the moment. Perhaps, her character development arc will get better by episode by episode, emotionless.

As for Jamie? He pretty well took as the main character of this story, like how Ben and Polly replaced the Doctor in The Tenth Planet.

1/10, painful, and hard to watch through 137 minutes as in 2 hours.