The Wheel In Space: Doctor Who: Season 5
| SYNOPSIS |
| DETAILS |
| CAST & CREW | REVIEWS |
 Goldby |  Grob |
The Wheel In Space SYNOPSIS:
The Tardis is marooned on an empty space vessel after one of mercury fluid links explodes. The silver Carrier changes course for a giant science observation space wheel and ejects a cargo of pods to the direction of the wheel. On board Jamie and the Doctor deal with a hostile Servo robot and the latter falls unconscious with a concussion.
Jamie alerts the crew of the space wheel to resource them both before leader Jarvis orders the 'lost' Carrier destroyed. Jamie meets Zoe Herriot and is forced to sabotage the Wheel's laser before it can destroy the Carrier and the Tardis within it. Cybermen have emerged from their cocoons on board and direct their cybermats to destroy the fuel supplies to the Wheel's laser. Wheel crewman board the Carrier to find new laser fuel supplies and are hypnotized by the cybermen.
The Cybermen are successfully smuggled aboard the Wheel with the Bernalium rod fuel. The laser is being repaired to combat an coming meteorite shower and the cybermen take over more crewmen with mind control. The Doctor comes up with a device that can prevent the mind control and leader Jarvis denies the threat and is relieved of his command by his second Gemma.
A cybermat attack is repelled by the crew and the cybermen decide to poison the atmosphere and kill the crew. They need the Wheel to act as a homing beacon for their fleet so the cybermen can invade Earth. The Cyber Planner has recognised the Doctor and orders him killed and without the Time vector generator from the Tardis the Doctor may not be able to repel the cybermen and Jamie and Zoe are about to be caught in a meteorite shower spacewalking back to the Tardis to retrieve it.
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The Wheel In Space DETAILS:
| Episode | Broadcast | Run Time | Viewership (In Millions) |
| Part One | 27-Apr-68 | 23:47 | 7.2 |
| Part Two | 4-May-68 | 22:50 | 6.9 |
| Part Three | 11-May-68 | 24:25 | 7.5 |
| Part Four | 18-May-68 | 24:14 | 8.6 |
| Part Five | 25-May-68 | 21:55 | 6.8 |
| Part Six | 1-Jun-68 | 23:10 | 6.5 |
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The Wheel In Space CAST & CREW
Stars:
The Doctor:
Patrick Troughton(Second Doctor)
Companions:
Fraser Hines (Jamie McCrimmon)
Wendy Padbury (Zoe Herriot)
Guest Stars:
Deborah Watling — Victoria
Michael Turner — Jarvis Bennett
Anne Ridler — Dr Gemma Corwyn
Eric Flynn — Leo Ryan
Clare Jenkins — Tanya Lernov
Kenneth Watson — Bill Duggan
Kevork Malikyan — Kemel Rudkin
Michael Goldie — Elton Laleham
Derrick Gilbert — Armand Vallace
Donald Sumpter — Enrico Casali
Peter Laird — Chang
James Mellor — Sean Flannigan
Freddie Foote — Servo Robot
Jerry Holmes, Gordon Stothard — Cybermen
Peter Hawkins, Roy Skelton — Cybermen Voices
Production Staff for Serial SS:
Writer - David Whitaker from a story by Kit Pedler
Director - Tristan de Vere Cole
Script editor - Derrick Sherwin
Producer - Peter Bryant
Missing episodes 1,2,4,5
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The Wheel In Space REVIEWS
Goldby
The plot Grob descibes below so eloquently definitely points to one thing, why don't the cybermen just damn well invade things? Maybe that's why their very next story was called The Invasion because they were trying something straight forward for a change. Wheel In Space is a very heavily padded six parter, as you say Grob you only parts 3 and 6 to realise that it's slow. Apparently Troughton took a holiday during the missing part 2. Apparently Part 1 was original, like the Ark In Space it only had the Tardis crew wandering around. The last 4 episodes could probably be squished down to 2.
It's obvious this is the last story of the season, as there are very few sets, two cybermen, very bad effects (worse than normal) and even worse acting aside from the regulars. There are some nice bits though, Zoe joins the crew is a plus in itself. Like Troughton's confrontation with the cybermen and his makeshift force field that puts paid to one of them in part 6. Plus the picture quality is awesome as is the hot actress who plays the Russian navigator. You can actually understand the new flat mechanical voices of the cybermen, they sound better than the silly bubbling, buzzing ones of Tomb. But take those points out and you get one very boring, slow moving story, which may have been ok as a slow four parter.
So this one gets a 3/10
Grob
Only episodes 3 and 6 exist of Wheel In Space but I reckon it could be a pretty damn good indication of what the story as a whole is like. Its very wordy, convoluted and - at times - very amateurishly acted. The cybermen themselves (both) of them look okay and if you thought the voices they had in The Tenth Planet were weird, you should hear these ones! They sound like someone swallowed a swarm of mosquitoes and then started reading a script. Speaking of the script, I had no idea what the cybermen were plotting cos of only two episodes, but what I gleaned was just....well, ambitious to say the least! Jumping on-line I was able to gather enough info to piece Wheel In Space together. It goes like this; (deep breath)
The cybemen attack and refuel The Silver Carrier and make it head towards the Wheel with a cargo of eggs that are then sent over to the Wheel cos they actually contain cybermats who will consume supplies of some type of precious metal during which the cybermen destroy a nearby star and create meteorites that they set on a collision course with the Wheel because the predicted rightly that the crew of the Wheel will be powerless to destroy the meteorites without that precious metal the cybermats have just eaten but they do discover an extra supply of it on board the Silver Carrier so they send people over to get it but the cybermen are already there and intend to stow away in the crates containing the precious metals so when it all gets taken back to the Wheel and kill the humans by cutting off their air supply so the cybermen can use the Wheel as a beacon for their ships to home in on. Whew.
I swear I didn't make that plot up! Christ, if the cybermen wanted the beacon so bloody much why didn't they just INVADE IT??? Or build their own bloody beacon??? Tom MacRae eat your heart out. And I thought Rise of the Cybermen was a piece of shit. 1/10 cos at least Zoe is in it.
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