The Web Planet: | ||
 | ep 1-6 – | The backdrops in this story cause a great deal of credibility problems; barely an episode goes by without a character walking past a "mountain range" and casting a shadow on it! (One example is in episode 2, when the Doctor and Ian walk past the mountains just after the Menoptera destroy Barbara's gold bracelet.) |
 | ep 1 – | In an early TARDIS scene, a blatantly obvious electrical cable is in shot, running from the console across the floor and out the back of the set. |
| ep 1 – | Hartnell loses his lines and ruins an entire scene. After Ian's line, "How do we open the doors? We have no power," the pain begins. The Doctor is supposed to explain how his ring can open the doors, but he can't get his lines out. In fact, he appears to have forgotten the entire purpose of the scene. Ian has to look three times at the Doctor's hand — during the eternity of horrible and irrelevant improvisation — before Hartnell spits out inexplicably, "This is not merely a decorative object". He then goes on to finish the scene as if it had all made perfect sense: a real trooper. |
| ep 1 – | Barbara gives Vicki an aspirin when earlier she was looking for a sedative. |
| ep 1 – | Outside the TARDIS, in the same scene where Ian's pen vanishes, a boom mike shadow makes a brief but unmistakeable appearance on the front of Ian's coat. Look for it as he follows the Doctor off the set, a split second before he whirls around to see if he is being followed. |
| ep 1 – | As Barbara is first drawn towards the TARDIS doors by the power of Vortis, there's a visible gap between the left-hand TARDIS door and the adjoining wall. Through the gap, people can be seen moving behind the doors. |
| ep 1 – | When Barbara goes to see if Vicki has awakened from her aspirin-induced nap, she sits down in front of a very reflective wall (you can see her reflection at the end of the scene, when she gets up abruptly and leaves the room). The blooper comes soon after she first sits down: you can see a spotlight being moved in to shine on her, but it also reflects into the camera. In the next shot of Barbara it has been moved. |
| ep 1 – | As the Doctor and Ian move away from the acid pool, a high shot reveals that the "rock formation" next to them is just two painted boards, with a wooden brace holding them together! |
| ep 1,2 – | At the first episode's climax, Hartnell returns to find the TARDIS missing, and has the line, "My ship! My TARDIS!" It was dubbed over for some reason, and incredibly badly. His lips move almost a full second before any sound is heard. |
| ep 2 – | Watch the rock formations that the hypnotised Barbara moves past at the start of this episode, and you can see the wooden supports holding them up. |
| ep 2 – | There's a scene starting with Ian lying on the ground, with a shadow appearing over his head. This shadow is revealed to be the cameraman and camera filming the scene when the shot widens as the Doctor approaches, the camera backs off, and the shadow disappears! |
| ep 2 – | As Barbara runs away from the Menoptera, she grabs one of the small rocks in passing. Just before it goes out of shot, it falls over with a "thud". |
| ep 2 – | When Hrhoonda is killed, his wings fall off. |
| ep 2 – | In the scene right after Vicki leaves the TARDIS and encounters the Zarbi, the Doctor and Ian are still being taken somewhere by their own group of ant creatures. They enter the set from directly in front of the camera, walking away from it with their backs to the lens. Look for another great shadow on Ian's coat just as they move away: the camera and the cameraman's head! |
| ep 2 – | When one of the alarms goes off in the Zarbi base, we're treated to a lovely shot of a blank wall for something like 5-6 seconds, before one of the Zarbi gets bored and pushes its nose into shot. |
| ep 3 – | When Ian is running away from the Zarbi, two bloopers happen in rapid succession. First, a Menoptra flies down to land behind him and follow him; the rope on which he was lowered shows brightly against the black background. A half-second later, the "larva gun" (that short little Zarbi-owned monster that looks like it was constructed out of spare parts for a car-wash) is dragged onto the scene; the rope used to pull it can be seen on the floor. |
| ep 3 – | A Zarbi is scuttling about when it manages to run straight into the camera with a loud CLUNK — the camera visibly shakes for a second or two afterwards.
[Wouldn't you if you had just been clunked by a Zarbi?] |
| ep 3 – | When a party of Zarbi and venom grubs are chasing Ian and Vrestin, the venom grub operator waited a little too long before getting down on all fours — he can be briefly seen moving in a crouching run, with his venom grub costume on his back! (This happens a couple of other times in the story, but this is the most obvious occurrence.) |
| ep 4 – | As Ian is buried in the rockfall, someone can be heard laughing. |
| ep 4 – | One of the imprisoned Menoptera, judging by its gestures, is merrily chatting to a Zarbi guard. |
| ep 4 – | That upright sheet of plastic (or glass?) attached to the Doctor's astral map machine causes some dreadfully obvious reflections of the studio lights in the scene where the Doctor neutralises the Zarbi control necklace. |
| ep 4 – | At the episode's climax, the Menoptera spearhead flies in to do battle with the Zarbi. And there's not a single one of them without a hugely visible rope dangling them from the ceiling! |
| ep 5 – | At the start of the episode, the rock formation that Barbara and the Menoptera are trapped against by the Zarbi wobbles badly as Barbara grabs it during their escape. |
| ep 6 – | Just as the episode begins, the Animus dome descends to speak with the Doctor. "You attempted escape?" it asks. Says Hartnell: "We have been on a slight... exploitation." |
| ep 6 – | And at the end of that first scene, the Doctor and Vicki are led off, ostensibly to "the centre"; Hartnell is groaning and clutching his face. The camera cuts to Barbara, who is supposed to be outside the web — yet we still hear Hartnell groaning pretty loudly! Obviously he didn't realize that his scene was over, and that the camera was long off him. Poor Jacqueline Hill just has to ignore him, and keep a straight face while saying, "The Doctor will have reached the control section by now." |
| ep 6 – | The fight between the Menoptera and the Zarbi reveals the flimsiness of the web-walls: one of them is badly knocked by a Zarbi and venom grub at the start of the fight; in the back of one shot, a wall is almost falling over; and another wall wobbles as the Zarbi retreat. |
| ep 6 – | When Prapillus sends a warning to the Menoptra invasion force, he says, in part, "Isop Plateau ambushed." It should be "Sayo Plateau" — Isop, according to the Doctor, is the name of the galaxy containing Vortis. |
| ep 6 – | The string from which the Animus itself is suspended is clearly visible in almost every scene. |
| ep 6 – | Just after the Animus is destroyed, a group of Zarbi proceeds to dig out water from the planet surface, and some Menoptra come over to join them. The weight of all the actors makes the wooden stage creak fearfully for a good long while.
[This is very far from the dusty planet surface the designers were trying to create!] |
| ep 6 – | When the TARDIS finally takes off (thank God!), we see a side view of it. One of the window panels is broken and is leaning inward ridiculously. |