Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet

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The Tenth Planet is the second serial of Season 4 of the classic Doctor Who television series. It was originally broadcast in four weekly episodes from 8 to 29 October 1966. It was written by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis, and directed by Derek Martinus. It stars William Hartnell as the Doctor, Anneke Wills as Polly, and Michael Craze as Ben Jackson.

Set in 1986 at Snowcap Base in Antarctica, the story begins when Earth’s long-lost twin world, Mondas, returns and strange figures, Cybermen, invade the base while a space mission called Zeus IV is in danger overhead. The Cybermen speak calmly and act without feeling, planning to drain Earth’s energy to save their own world, and the base commander’s hard choices risk making a bad situation worse.

The serial is significant for several reasons: it introduces the Cybermen, one of the Doctor’s most enduring enemies, and features the first ever regeneration of the Doctor, marking the transition from William Hartnell to Patrick Troughton. Only the fourth episode is missing from the BBC archives, but reconstructions using telesnaps exist.

Episode 1

The TARDIS lands in a snowstorm near the South Pole in 1986. Soldiers surround it and take the Doctor, Ben, and Polly to Snowcap Base. General Cutler is suspicious but keeps them under guard. The base tracks a manned spacecraft, Zeus IV, and strange readings appear on the screens. Something huge moves toward Earth. Power dips. Instruments flicker. The Doctor grows pale and warns that an old planet is returning.

Outside, a patrol goes to check the TARDIS and does not report back. On the radar, three unknown figures cross the ice. In the control room, technicians fight to keep contact with Zeus IV as the mystery body pulls at the ship. Temperatures fall and equipment strains. The Doctor tells Cutler that Earth once had a twin world.

Night closes over the base. The three figures in white parkas reach the doors and push past the guards with impossible strength. Ben is locked away; Polly is told to stay out of the way. The Doctor waits, certain of what is coming.

The intruders stride into the control room and remove their helmets. They are not human: metal faces, cloth-sheathed bodies, hands like tools. “We are Cybermen,” they say. “We come from Mondas.” Weapons lift. The takeover of Snowcap begins.

Episode 2

The Cybermen seize Snowcap Base. They order General Cutler and the crew to obey while Mondas, Earth’s twin, draws close in space and begins draining power from the world. On the screens, the spacecraft Zeus IV drifts out of control. The Doctor warns the crew that the Cybermen plan to convert humans into beings like themselves: without emotion.

Polly is kept under guard in the tracking room. Ben is locked in a side cabin. He pries open a panel, slips out, and creeps toward the reactor area. A Cyberman corners him. Ben yanks open a cupboard of radiation rods and brandishes one. The Cyberman staggers and retreats. Ben shouts the news: radiation weakens them. Cutler’s men grab guns and press the advantage. In a burst of fighting, one Cyberman is forced back and falls; another is driven out of the control room.

Contact with Geneva crackles in and out as Mondas steals more energy. The base gets a brief signal from Zeus IV; the astronauts plead for help. Cutler rages at the loss of control and vows to save them at any cost. Alarms sound on the perimeter. Patrols report movement on the ice.

As the crew regains the control room, shapes appear through the snow. More Cybermen march on Snowcap, their weapons ready. The siege tightens.

Episode 3

General Cutler takes full control of Snowcap Base as more Cybermen gather outside. Mondas keeps draining Earth’s power; radios fade in and out. News arrives that a second capsule, Zeus Five, carrying Cutler’s son, is in space and in danger. Cutler swears to save him at any cost. He reveals the base’s secret weapon: a nuclear “Z-bomb” that can be launched to destroy Mondas. The Doctor grows weak and is taken to the sickbay, warning that rash action could doom everyone.

Scientist Barclay quietly argues the bomb is too risky, but Cutler orders preparations anyway. Polly tries to reason with him and is pushed aside. Ben slips away with Barclay to the bomb room. Under Barclay’s guidance, Ben crawls into cramped ducts and removes crucial firing components so the launch will fail without causing harm.

Outside, the Cybermen attack again and are forced back by guards who now know radiation weakens them. Inside, the countdown begins. Cutler watches the clock and demands status reports. When the launch circuits refuse to engage, he realises there has been sabotage. Soldiers drag in Barclay and Ben. Cutler threatens court-martial and worse, then orders the systems rebuilt at once.

Sirens wail. Through the snow, more Cybermen advance on the doors. Cutler shouts to hold them while he tries to force the launch. The siege tightens as the base braces for a final assault.

Episode 4

Snow blasts the base. General Cutler forces the Z-bomb team to rebuild the launch, but the doors burst open and Cybermen storm in. Cutler fires and falls. The Cybermen take over Snowcap again. Mondas draws even more power from Earth; lights flicker, radios die. The Cybermen change their plan: to save Mondas, Earth must be destroyed. They order Barclay and Ben to arm the Z-bomb under guard. Polly is held as a hostage.

Ben remembers radiation hurts the Cybermen. He and Barclay rig a trap in the bomb room, exposing a rod at close range. When a guard advances, the radiation drives him back. A fight flares; the humans smash control links and delay the firing sequence. In the control room, the Cybermen threaten to kill everyone unless the launch proceeds.

Outside, Mondas begins to overload. Its surface glows. Reports say ships and stations across the world see the same. One by one the Cybermen weaken, then collapse. Weapons fall from their hands. The siege ends as Mondas bursts and vanishes in space.

Relief sweeps the base; Zeus Five is safe. The Doctor, very weak, says his “old body is wearing a bit thin” and slips away. Ben and Polly follow him into the TARDIS. The doors close. A strange light fills the control room. The Doctor falls, his face changes, and a new man lies where the old Doctor stood. This is the Doctor’s first regeneration into a new body.

Themes

As a polar “base-under-siege” that births two pillars of the programme (the Cybermen and regeneration) The Tenth Planet feels foundational. Snowcap’s mounting dread, Mondas’s fatal drain, and Hartnell’s frailty gathering like a storm give it a gravity that sits just beneath epic peaks like The Daleks’ Master Plan, but above lighter contemporary fare such as The Smugglers”

It’s not the slickest Hartnell production, yet for historical importance and cold, uncanny atmosphere, it earns an upper-tier rating in the First Doctor era.

Its threads tie the past to a long future. Ben and Polly, fresh from The War Machines and bedded-in by The Smugglers, carry us over the threshold to The Power of the Daleks, where a new Doctor’s era begins. The rag-voiced, cloth-faced Cybermen here seed a lineage that hardens through The Moonbase, crystallises in The Tomb of the Cybermen, and marches into Earth in The Invasion.

Just as crucially, that closing glow on the TARDIS floor invents the show’s renewal trick, letting the narrative leap from one face to the next. As a story, it’s a hinge: the First Doctor’s last winter, and the template for so much of what comes after.

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This is a chapter from Craig Hill’s book “Doctor Who – The First Doctor”, chronicling every episode featuring the First Doctor. It is available on Amazon.

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To view the list of other Doctor Who serials, please click this link

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