The Web of Fear

"Yeti's in the Underground!"

It's a phrase which brings delight to both die-hard fans and, more importantly, members of the public and d-list celebrities who try and remember Doctor Who. Why is this? Is it because "The Web of Fear" was a worthy adventure, justified of its six episode length and rich in poetic dialogue and moral reasoning? Or is it because it's got Yeti's in it. In the Underground.

Doctor Who has always sounded better when you're able to describe the juxtaposition of a memorable foe (or, more accurately a respectable and iconic series image) against a familiar backdrop. Daleks on the Thames. The Cybermen at St Paul's. Even a Yeti on the loo in Tooting Beck. Somehow the mention of one of our own landmarks gives the occasion added merit; it's like the series is honouring us with a visit. Of course, every Doctor Who story is set in the same Universe, which is supposed to be ours. And showing St Paul's Cathedral on screen doesn't make the chance of "The Invasion" actually happening any more likely than a story set on Telos or at Wookey Hole. Every place in the Doctor Who Universe is as fictional as every other place. It just seems more real when you know where it is. When you've been there.

It's partly a tradition. There's a celebratory, charitable air about the TARDIS landing in a Liverpool Police Station backyard for example. Perhaps it comes down to viewer identification; those watching can understand far more easily if the location is familiar. In fact, it's like watching your football team at home rather than in an away ground, you actually have an advantage over the Doctor because you know London, or the Home Counties. When he visits an alien world, it may be exciting but a whole lot of things are harder work; believing, knowing, understanding and paying attention. When the TARDIS lands in Trafalgar Square all we have to worry about is the monsters, not if the plants are hostile or if we're in a dimension where the ants have taken over.

And it's always monsters we want to see when the TARDIS comes home. Rare are the minor politicians or TV presenters who wax lyrical at the memory of "The Master... standing outside Dover Castle". For a start there's again something iconic about our more familiar landmarks being desecrated; the single image of a Dalek saucer at Chelsea or even a Bendy Dinosaur outside Embankment Station is more evocative than a dozen scenes of a nobody reporting that the country has been overrun. Like the end of "Planet of the Apes", we best understand our downfall in terms of symbolism. That's why all the stories where an alien force invades a dull bit of Britain get forgotten more easily; if you don't know where it is, those caves or fields could be anywhere, even another planet (especially as in Doctor Who, they often were). More importantly, in the days when Doctor Who was on for most weeks of the year, only certain stories stood out. And most of these, inevitably, were the ones that both struck a chord as described and could easily be recounted. No child is going to harp on about "the one where the Ambassadors came from Mars and the Doctor went up in a rocket" for long. No matter how good or exciting the story is at the time, it doesn't SOUND exciting afterwards.

But stick the Yeti's in the Underground, or have the Daleks attack Westminster, or film the Sontarans framed against Big Ben, and you give rise to an image which is more powerful even that the plodding story it came from. That's the stuff that real legends are made of.