The Edge Of Destruction (Eps 1 & 2)

I watched 'Edge Of Destruction' about 2 weeks ago and didn't get around to typing up my rough notes. I look at them now and I can't make head nor tail of them, some bits make sense and trigger my memory, but many I have no idea what they referred to. I should probably watch it again, but I do remember it was pretty ropey, the direction was shaky and some of the acting was even shakier, so I won't. None of the principals seem quite sure how to play this strange little play with strange forces manipulating them, there is certainly little consistency of approach among the four or even within their own performances, which waver wildly. They were clearly confused by what was going on while filming as much as the characters are in the plot. As I'm not watching again, you'll just have to make what you will of my short hand bullet points, written exactly as they were scribbled, that were meant to remind me a day or two later, not 2 weeks later, when this 2 parter has been best and easily forgot. I've made a guess at what I meant in a few places in brackets.

Here are my shorthand scribblings with a few added notes of explanation...

'Edge Of Destruction' Episode One

• "I know you"
• 'Susan - bad neck hurt acting' (yes, I remember it was pretty bad)
• 'Barbara normal' (i think I meant Barbara seems about normal, while the other seem strange)
• 'Ian - Anthony Perkins "working late tonight"' (playing it like Anthony Perkins in 'Psycho')
• 'Ian's forgotten' (Ian's forgotten where they are i.e. in the TARDIS in time and space)
• 'Ian playing deadpan, unblinking' (William Russell choosing to play it deadpan)
• 'Simpleton (tut tut un pc bad shorthand, bad) like Tommy from POS' (Ian acting in a childlike like Tommy from Planet Of The Spiders)
• 'Susan - neurotic'
• 'Ian - zombie' (I seemed to be very interested in the way Ian was being acted and trying to pin it down with a better descriptions)
• 'Ian starts acting normally "what's going on here"' (yes, what the fuck is this shit!!)
• 'Susan hilarious "no, who are you"'. 
• '(Crazy) hair and knife!' (Susan in a brilliantly bad moment of knife weilding with crazy cat lady hair)
• 'Music's good'
• '"an animal or a man or something"' (funny and odd description from Barbara of what may have got into the TARDIS I think)
• '"Rosemary's Baby"'(a yes, more knife weilding Susan)
• 'Susan WTF??' (must have been more craziness from Susan)
• 'then she's better; "hey the scanner's working"' (suddenly Susan acting less crazy? i think it was jarring as she was back to almost normal in the space of seconds)
• 'The pace is so wrong' (the direction - i was so right)
• '"yes it records our journeys"' (would only have written down this line if it was delivered badly or weirdly)
• 'No idea how to play it or say the lines' (referring to the regulars)
• 'Director doesn't know' (surely he could have asked Whitaker or at least talked with the cast to find some agreement, better to all get it consistently wrong than all pull different ways surely?)
• 'Barbara - "do you realise you stupid old man"' (I think I liked Jackie's Hill's delivery there)
• 'Barbara dog n Susan' (that's not what I meant or wrote, but that's what my scribble looks like!!)
• 'Melty time music' (can't remember if I liked it or thought it was bonkers, when the clock hands melted, probably the latter)
• 'The slow moving, you'd be more manic' (maybe thinking they were speaking and moving too slowly for the sense of panic they would/ should have had in this situation' - pad to 25 minutes! slower!!)
• 'Barb(ara) goes to bed' (yes, and?)
• 'Susan psycho walk' (ok, I remember, Barbara goes to bed in the middle of a crisis? then Susan goes to bed with a crazy lady walk)
• 'Ian drained of character'
• 'Wooden' (still talking about Ian)
• 'playing disoriented in different ways' (was this referring to them all, or just William Russell being inconsistent, I think both)

'Edge Of Destruction' Episode 2 'Brink Of Disaster'

• 'Billy bad bad "you saw what he told, try to do"' (must have been a bad Billy fluff)
• Susan back to psycho then "no" put off the ship' (Susan acting psychotic again, but then cries "no" when the Doctor threatens to put Ian and Barbara off the ship)
• 'Billy - 3 fluffs' (he must have been having a shocker)
• 'Ian - "no you'll get knocked out" (bad line delivery I think)
• "We haven't crash landed otherwise I would have discovered that immediately" (The Doctor dishing up a big hot serve of 'no shit!')
• '"We have 10 minutes to survive"' (and the audience 10 to endure! and how did he deduce they had 10 minutes to live - creating fake drama where there was none) 
• 'meta textual' (referring to Hartnell unknowingly speaking for the audience in the previous point, me trying to find the word for where drama/ reality/ character/ audience intertwine)
• "The column hold the power down" (stupid concept, the time rotor as bath plug? or pressure cooker cap, come on!)
• "I don't even know where to begin, if only I had a clue" (The Doctor saying exactly how I feel trying to interpret my shoddy notes, is that some more dubious meta-textual stuff?)
• "If you'd felt the power dear boy, you wouldn't live to speak of it" (snigger, snigger, would love to hear Troughton giving that one to Hines)
• "We have 5 minutes only, they won't know" (let's not bother the delicate girls with this manly problem of total obliteration)
• 'Hartnell monologue, looks and sounds great (un)til he overcooks' (it was until the last few seconds when he goes OTT manic)
• 'it hasn't released itself' (the fast return switch)
• 'fast return - pen' (fast return written badly in texta on console)
• 'Barb + Ian back to back mourn' (?? - I have no idea what I meant)
• 'Hartnell "er uh er uh yes young man, no recrim(inations)"' (I think I enjoyed Hartnell's awkward back-peddling apology)
• 'Ian laughing bad' (bad end of episode it's all better acting I think)
• 'Lovely scene Ian & Barb' (I think I meant to write Doctor & Barbara and it was lovely scene where they make up and walk arm in arm back out to the console room)

A noble failure overall. It is ambitious and ground breaking in some ways, but they just don't manage to pull it off and suspend disbelief often enough. The inconsistencies and uncertainties derial what could have been something akin to Mind Robber Part One.