Season 7 - Days 254 to 278

Broadcast Dates: 3rd January 1970 - 20th June 1970

Relative Dates: 2nd August 2012 - 26th August 2012

A new Doctor, a new decade and a new show. I'd reached season 7. One of the best seasons in Doctor Who ever!

Spearhead From Space

It's Doctor Who in colour!

The fact that the show is continually refreshing and renewing itself has been vital in my continued success in the this quest. Every now and then the show changes and it helps to give me the motivation to carry on.

For the first time in the shows history we have an episode where everything is new. There is no cross over in Doctors or companions. The only linking factor to the seasons prior to this one is the presence of the Brigadier and UNIT. The Doctor is now exiled to Earth and as such over the next few years he will take up the role of UNIT's scientific adviser. The reasoning behind exiling the Doctor to Earth from a production point of view was to save some money as they would no longer have to spend it on creating vistas of other worlds etc. Unfortunately the writers quickly realised that they had pretty much limited themselves to two stories, those being "alien invasion" and "mad scientist". Saying that, some of my favourite stories come from this period of the series and this first story for the third Doctor is no exception.

This is the debut story for the Autons, the creatures of living plastic. As such we get the truly creepy scenes of shop window dummies coming to life, smashing through windows and blasting innocent bystanders down in the street. This is very grim and grown up stuff. The writer of this story was Robert Holmes who has written some of the very best stories for Doctor Who and it seems he enjoyed terrorising children!

We also see the trauma of regeneration for the first time, and the poor Brigadier is totally confused as to why this strange man he has never met before is claiming to be the Doctor.

Liz Shaw is introduced in this story as the companion and is yet another scientist recruited by UNIT. Her bewilderment to the story of an alien called the Doctor who travels round in a time and space machine that looks like a police box is a good way to introduce new viewers to the show.

Doctor Who and The Silurians

 

 

Let's get this out of the way straight away. The title. No, no, no, no!! Doctor Who is not his name! If the writers can't get the hang of this then how the hell are the viewing public! I tend to refer to this story simply as "The Silurians" but for completeness I felt I had to use the full title in this blog. Anyway, moving on...

 

When I was watching this story I was away for a weekend without access to a television or DVD player. I was stopping in Newcastle with my friend Lee who was visiting from Australia. Luckily another friend, Chris, had helped me out in finding a way to transfer the episodes from DVD onto my iPhone. This was great because now I knew that (given enough warning) I need not be tied to my house every night in order to get the episode in. I could actually go away and have some semblance of a life! So to the story itself...

 

Another fantastic story! We find out that long before humans evolved on the Earth, the planet was actually occupied by the Silurian race. The Silurians went into hibernation when they detected a large body that was about to strike the Earth. This turned out to be the moon and obviously didn't strike the Earth (although I think modern theories seem to imply that the moon was created by a large collision with the Earth). Meanwhile the Silurians "alarm clock" didn't go off as planned and as such they slept on. Until the humans came along and built a nuclear power facility right over where the Silurians' caves are situated.

 

This is such a good story because we can actually sympathise with the plight of the "monsters". As far as they are concerned, the Earth is their planet and we are just primitive apes. Unfortunately, the Brigadier just wants to wipe them out so it is left to the Doctor to sneak away from UNIT in order to try to broker a peace with the reptiles.

 

As a seven part story this could really drag along but it really doesn't. This is helped somewhat by a plot development in the second half of the story where one of the evil Silurians allows a virus to be spread amongst the humans that the Doctor then has to concentrate all his efforts on in order to find a cure. Meanwhile the ministry official, Masters, played by Geoffry Palmer (in his first appearance in the series) has already left the facility and we get some really creepy scenes as he stumbles his way through London before collapsing dead against some railings.

 

Despite the Doctors best effort it seems that a truce between humans and Silurians is out of his reach and he is forced to trick the Silurians into going back into hibernation. This would have been a perfectly acceptable away for the story to end but it's not over yet.

 

Convinced that the situation is under control, the Doctor and Liz leave the facility in the Doctor's new yellow car (named Bessie, it will sort of be a substitute for the TARDIS over the next couple of years allowing the Doctor to get from A to B). Meanwhile, with the Doctor out of the way, the Brigadier goes behind his back and orders the caves of the Silurians to be destroyed and the Doctor can only look on sadly as he sees the explosions in the distance. The story has ended but this time it feels like the Doctor has lost.

 

The Ambassadors Of Death

 

Another fine story in what was shaping up to be one of the best seasons of Doctor Who ever.

 

Unfortunately when I got up to watching this story in my quest it was not available on DVD. This obviously wasn't the first time this had happened. The missing stories aren't on DVD for obvious reasons. For cases where I needed to watch a story that existed but was not yet available on DVD then my mate Tony Dawson was instrumental in helping me out. Cheers Tony!

 

Of all the stories of season seven this is the one I am most unfamiliar with. I have seen all the other stories of this season countless times and love them all. I'd heard from various sources that this was the best of the season. I think this must have counted against it and my hopes and expectations for it were too high as I found myself being slightly disappointed.

 

There are some good parts though. UNIT get a good fight scene near the start. The Brigadier kicks ass! And Liz gets a fantastic car chase scene in Bessie.

 

I'm struggling to remember the exact details of the story. It's all about a space capsule that returns to Earth and the astronauts have been replaced by radioactive creatures that kill with their touch. As with the Silurians I believe it is the case that the creatures aren't necessarily evil and are being manipulated by an group of humans. It is very much the humans who are the baddies here.

 

One peculiar thing about this one that I remember is the way the opening credits ran. We get the usual credits which then lead into the recap from the cliffhanger of the previous episode only for it to return to the credits in time for the title to pop up. It was interesting to see the production team trying new things.

 

Inferno

 

So season seven comes to a close with this cracker of a story! This could be a challenger for my all time favourite story and definitely my favourite of the third Doctor era.

 

The Doctor and UNIT are overseeing a scientific project to drill to the centre of the Earth in order to access the gases that they believe will give a new and clean source of energy. The Doctor is tapping into the power from the facility in order to try to get the TARDIS console working again. Bizarrely we get to see the console completely removed from the TARDIS and stored in the Doctor's shed! Also we finally see that the console is green! This is still the original console that has been used from the beginning of the series but we are seeing it in colour for the first time.

 

Professor Stahlmann is accelerating the drilling to beyond acceptable limits. This line sounded particularly rude!

 

PROF STAHLMANN:- "We are fast approaching penetration zero and I will not decelerate at this critical stage!"

 

Soon green ooze is starting to leak out of the drilled hole (This is just sounding plain filthy now!) and infecting anyone who touches it, turning them into super heated zombie killing machines. It's never really explained why but that is just the flaw in the Persian rug of this story. Stahlmann himself becomes infected and hides his green hands with a pair of white gloves. But soon his behaviour is becoming more and more erratic.

 

The Doctor's experiments cause him to leap into a parallel world and this is where things start to get really good. Its a fascist world and all his friends aren't quite as nice as he remembers them. A perfect example of this is the picture shown above. We no longer have the Brigadier but the vicious Brigade Leader! Even lovely Liz Shaw seems to have a steely exterior to her.

 

This world's drilling is more advanced than our own and as such they soon penetrate the crust of the Earth despite the Doctor trying desperately to stop them as he knows what terrible powers they will unleash. The shit really hits the fan and soon we are hearing explosions coming from all over the facility and earthquakes are rocking the planet.

 

THE DOCTOR:- "Listen to that! That's the sound of this world screaming out it's rage!!"

 

The next couple of episodes are incredibly atmospheric as the Doctor and the Inferno team have to deal with attacks from the zombies as well as the impending death of the Earth. The soundtrack is constantly filled with the sound of rumbling and explosions which signify the death throes of the planet. The Doctor finally convinces them that he from a parallel world. This planet is doomed and there is nothing that can be done, however the Doctor realises it is not to late for our own world and if he can only get back in time then he will be able to save our world.

 

They soon realise that they can battle the zombies by blasting them with fire extinguishers, which is good as there are hell of a lot of them position in very convenient locations around the facility!

 

Everyone turns to the Doctor's side and aids him in getting back to his console and getting it powered up. Except for Professor Stahlmann who has turned into a proper rampaging zombie...werwolf...thing..

 

At the last minute the Brigade Leader insist that the Doctor take them all with him, despite the Doctor telling him that it's impossible leading to the Brigade Leader pulling a gun out on him. Luckily he is saved by Liz in a fantastic moment that shows that our Liz and this Liz are still the same person deep down. The Doctor escapes just in time as the larva flows towards the remaining survivors. What a cliffhanger! For obvious reasons, they can't destroy the Earth in a Doctor Who episode every day, but here they actually do it! As death counts go then this has got to be the biggest one in any story!

 

This is another seven part story, the third one of this season but it absolutely flies by! I want to watch this again now!

 

Here's a cool trailer that a fan has made and it really shows how atmospheric this story is:

 

 

 



That was season seven done. The third Doctor had officially arrived!!

Days 518 to 521 - Nightmare Of Eden

I've always thought that those moments that you see in movies where people wake from a scary dream to sit bolt up right in bed was just an exaggeration. No one actually does that! However over the last few days I've leaned that I was very much mistaken. I'm not sure why but for the last couple of days I have woken up in a mad panic in the belief that I have forgotten to watch my daily episode. Clearly the madness is finally setting in. I guess it's been long over due.

If this was to happen at any time during my quest then it seems fitting that these nightmares begin whilst watching a story with the word "nightmare" in the title, proving that my subconscious mind is just as witty as my conscious mind! It's possible that this all began because I watched episode one at a much later time of night than I'm used to due to the fact that I had been out at a quiz (we didn't even win! Second from last!). If anything this goes to show that having any kind of life is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs! The quest is the quest!....yep there's that madness again!

So what can I say about the story itself? Well...

A space liner collides with another smaller ship and the two ships become merged in some very poor model shots. I really couldn't work out what the hell was supposed to be going on.

Luckily the Doctor and Romana arrive in the nick of time to help in the separation of the ships (something that gets talked about for three out of the four episodes before someone finally does something about it)

Meanwhile the space liner is transporting Professor Tryst (who has a very strange accent) and his CET machine. That's Continual Event Transmuter (obviously!) which is carrying recordings of all the various worlds he has visited stored in crystals which can then be projected onto a screen. Due to the dimensional instabilities caused by the merging of the two ships, it is now possible for people to step into these projections and, more worryingly, allow creatures to step out! Soon the ship is being rampaged by the Mandrels from the planet Eden, who are a little to cuddly to be scary.

On top of this the Doctor realises that the whole thing is a cover for the smuggling of the highly addictive drug, Vraxoin. It's very rare that Doctor Who does a story about something as serious as drugs and I really liked this aspect of the story. The captain of the space liner inadvertently takes some of the drug and his actions (particularly when he is coming down and becomes violent with Romana, whom he believes to be hiding more Vraxoin) is actually really alarming!

The Doctor can't work out where the drugs are being hidden and there is a cool twist where we find out that the Mandrels themselves are the source of the Vraxoin. When they are killed they instantly decay into a powder that the Doctor identifies as the drug.

I've only seen this story a couple of times and each time I've really wanted to like it as it has a fairly good reputation and has a lot of neat story ideas, but there's just something about it that I don't like. I think it's all a little confusing. I found it hard to work out which ship each of the characters were on at any moment. I think they were on the space liner for most of the story.

I think it's mainly a case of it being one episode too long and feels a little padded.

Days 514 to 517 - The Creature From The Pit

After seeing the above picture I don't really feel I need to say any more about this one!

What isn't shown above is the scene that follows when the Doctor proceeds to "blow" through the creatures dangly bit. I wonder how many other creatures the Doctor has performed fellatio on!

Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. The Doctor and Romana land on a planet where the Lady Adrasta is in control due to her holding a monopoly on the planet's only source of metal. An ambassador (the green blob shown above) from a metal rich planet has visited in order to offer a trade relationship with the planet but Lady Adrasta has banished him to a pit and is throwing any traitors down the pit to feed him.

This is not a great story at all and I'm struggling to say anything of note about it.

Tom Baker is rather sweaty throughout, I wonder if he was ill.

K9 is now being voiced by a different actor which I'm not too keen on. He seems to come across a little smug and if there is one thing I can't stand its a smug metal dog!

During the first half of the story the creature is seen to be nothing more than a monster and the end of episode two seems to confirm this when it rolls over the Doctor, crushing him. Let's address the elephant in the room here, the creature looks like a giant ball bag! I had to chuckle when the creature rolled over the Doctor because I thought how terrible it would have been if this was how the fourth Doctor died. It would have gone like this:

First Doctor: Old age

Second Doctor: A forced regeneration by the Time Lords

Third Doctor: Radiation poisoning from the Metabilius crystals

Forth Doctor: Being "tea-bagged" by a giant green scrotum!

What an undignified way to go! Fortunately this doesn't happen and the Doctor soon finds a way to communicate with the creature in order to learn of it's plight.

I have nothing more to say on this sorry. Utter pants!

On a brighter note, the donations are now up to £205! Thanks to everyone who has donated! And to those who haven't I'm going to be pestering you for another year I'm afraid!

The Second Doctor

 

Another Doctor had been and gone so it was time to get reflective and look back at the second Doctor himself and each of his companions, but first here's another great tribute video from Babelcolour, this time covering the second Doctor's era.

 

 

 

 

With the end of the second Doctor it really felt like I was moving into a properly new chapter of the series, more so than the transition from first Doctor to second Doctor. The 1960s were over and the show was moving from black and white to colour! Also, with the exception of the Brigadier, there were would be no crossover in companions in this period as was the case with Ben and Polly helping with the transition from the first to the second Doctor. It would really feel like a whole new beginning for Doctor Who, reborn in a new decade.

But first I need to look at the main characters from this era of the show. I was torn about including the Brigadier but he is a much more important and relevant character in the third Doctor era so I shall be talking about him and the rest of UNIT then.

The Second Doctor

I've probably said this before but it must have been a very brave decision to replace the Doctor in the way that they did. They clearly wanted to get rid of William Hartnell but I would have thought that the obvious decision therefore would have been to get in another actor who was similar to William Hartnell and just take it from there. Instead the new Doctor is radically different, both in appearance and personality. It was this very brave move that has probably allowed the show to survive for as long as it has because it allows the show to be completely refreshed every few years with a brand new take on the character.

The second Doctor himself starts off very mysteriously and it seems to take Ben in particular a while to begin to trust him and believe that he is in fact the same man. It's a tragedy that so many of the early Patrick Troughton stories no longer exist as we can no longer see him taking his first few steps into the role and developing it as he seems to do over the first few stories. For example, the Doctor seems to have developed the habit of playing the recorder, particularly in times when he is deep in thought. This is something that was toned down in later stories. As was his obsession with finding the perfect hat. He went through several during his first year on the show before this habit was also faded out of the show. It's nice to see the eleventh Doctor has also picked up some of these tendencies with his Fez and Stetson wearing antics of the last couple of seasons.

The second Doctor is far less grumpy than his prior incarnation. Although that seems a bit harsh to say, as William Hartnell's Doctor wasn't quite as grumpy as people are led to believe, he certainly mellowed out as the years went by.

Where as William Hartnell should be congratulated for launching the series and making it such a success, Patrick Troughton should be congratulated on turning the Doctor into the more familiar character that we know today. Many of the later actors who would go on to play the Doctor would name Patrick Troughton as one of their favourites and therefore their inspiration for the character. This includes Matt Smith who had not seen much of Doctor Who before winning the part and, as the story goes, watched Tomb Of The Cybermen and was completely enthralled by Troughton's performance.

I think one of the reasons that the second Doctor is amongst the most popular is because of the perfect balance that he treads between appearing to be an out right clown when really he knows exactly what is going on.

Also hidden beneath the clownish exterior is a manipulative streak. This is most noticeable in The Evil Of The Daleks when he manipulates Jamie into trying to rescue Victoria so that the Daleks can secretly monitor his attempt, and also in The Tomb Of The Cybermen when he secretly opens the hatch that leads down to the tombs so that he can satisfy his own curiosity. Clearly he is still the same man who secretly sabotaged the TARDIS so that himself, Susan, Ian and Barbara will be forced to explore the Dalek city way back in the very first season.

Finally we begin to find out a little more of the Doctor's past. He is a Time Lord who ran away from his own planet simply because he was bored and strongly disagreed with the Time Lords' policy of non interference in the affairs of other worlds. As he says himself, he does "tend to get involved".

Ben and Polly

It is very difficult to judge Ben and Polly as companions as they only have the one full story in existence and that is their debut story. However they do hold the prestigious status of being the first companions to witness the regeneration of the Doctor and are therefore important to the series as they would have helped the viewer to feel comfortable around the new Doctor.

I can't really remember much about these two, which I actually feel quite bad about. They were by no means bad companions (I'm looking at you Dodo and Katarina!) it's just that I'm very unfamiliar with their stories.

Polly is unfortunately given the task of making the coffee on far to many an occasion and Ben is sidelined somewhat by the arrival of Jamie in The Highlanders.

Ben has a good story in The Macra Terror when he is hypnotised to work against the Doctor, Polly and Jamie. It's quite well done actually because Michael Craze doesn't play it as your usual standard hypnotised zombie but more as a Ben who has simply been given another viewpoint. This makes it all the more sinister as it really does feel like Ben has turned against them.

Their departure in The Faceless Ones is also one of the poorer companion departures. It's not terrible but it's not great either. They go missing early on in the story, a little like Dodo does in The War Machines but unlike Dodo they do at least turn up at the end to bid their farewells to the Doctor and Jamie.

Jamie McCrimmon

Jamie McCrimmon! One of the most popular of all Doctor Who companions! And the strangest thing about that is that he's male! There aren't a great deal of male companions when you look at the whole history of Doctor Who.

Also (and I'm putting my fan status on the line here!) I believe Jamie is the longest serving companion..possibly. I mean it depends on how you look at it. For number of episodes, it's got to be Jamie! He is in every single second Doctor story except the first one and as such I was very familiar with the Doctor/Jamie relationship so it surprised me how long it took for it to properly form.

Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines spar off each other brilliantly and remained very good friends in real life. This friendship comes across on screen. But for the first few stories Jamie is not really given the opportunity to shine while Ben and Polly are still in the picture. It's not until The Faceless Ones when Ben and Polly mysteriously disappear that I noticed the relationship between the Doctor and Jamie forming into the one that I am familiar with. Not to mention Jamie's flirtatious relationship with Samantha in the same story!

Jamie was also useful in most stories as he served as a protector to first Victoria and then Zoe which allowed the Doctor to go off and get up to his own affairs.

Due to Jamie being in the show for such a long time, when he finally departs it is truly heartbreaking. The fact that he is going to have his memory erased too so that he will remember nothing past his first adventure with the Doctor makes it all the more tragic. This also mean that he will never remember Zoe as they don't meet her until much later in the second Doctor's travels.

While at times Jamie can come across as a bit thick, at least in comparison to Zoe and The Doctor, the one thing that is never in doubt is his complete loyalty to the Doctor. The moment in The Evil Of The Daleks when Jamie over hears the Doctor making a deal to use him in the Daleks' experiment is the one moment when their relationship wavers, which is understandable because I would be pretty pissed off too!

Victoria Waterfield

Speaking of The Evil Of The Daleks, this was the debut story for Victoria Waterfield. Similar to Ben and Polly she is very unlucky in that so few of her episodes still survive today. Her only complete story being The Tomb Of The Cybermen. As such my memory of her stories is a little thin.

Victoria was also one of those unfortunate companions who join the Doctor after being orphaned. You can see why they do this as it avoids the problems associated with them having to leave family members behind, particularly in a time when the Doctor was incapable of steering the TARDIS. Once leaving a location, the chances of getting back to that same location were very slim.

The death of Edward Waterfield at the hands (or should that be the plungers?) of the Daleks is not completely forgotten though as it is brought up again in The Tomb Of The Cybermen where Victoria and the Doctor have an emotional heart to heart about family and what it's like to lose them.

During her time in the show Victoria would meet Daleks, Cybermen, Yeti, The Great Intelligence and The Ice Warriors. As a list of classic monsters, that's a pretty impressive one!

Victoria's departure is handled quite well in Fury From The Deep. Instead of being tacked on at the end like Ben and Polly's departure was, it is actually hinted at throughout the story as Victoria grows more and more hysterical at the terrifying things that are happening around her and begins to realise that she doesn't want to keep travelling with the Doctor.

Zoe Heriot

This is the second Doctor "TARDIS team" that I'm most used to. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe.

With Zoe being a character from the future she was far more intelligent that Victoria (sorry Victoria!) and there are some great scenes of her competing with the Doctor as to who is the cleverest. This scene in The Krotons is hilarious and actually one of the only good things about The Krotons!

She's also able to put her brains to good use to solve some major problems. She is instrumental in the success of the UNIT missile strike on the Cyber ships trying to invade the Earth. She calculates the optimal way of firing the missiles to cause maximum destruction throughout the fleet, and all the while having her ass checked out by horny soldiers! The dirty devils!

When she first joins the TARDIS she comes across as a little cold and unemotional, preferring to act from sheer logic but as the Doctor says "Logic my dear Zoe, merely allows one to be wrong with authority". Fortunately this is a character trait that soon disappears and she becomes one of the shows best loved companions.

I would probably say I prefer Zoe to Victoria but I'm never sure whether this is simply because Zoe's stories are actually around to be watched and haven't been junked by a short sighted BBC!

As with Jamie, her departure is truly tragic as the Doctor's world is completely torn apart. Zoe is forced to return to where she came with only limited memories of her time with the Doctor.

So the Doctor had been exiled to Earth, without friends and even without the ability to use his own TARDIS. The blue box materialises in a wooden glade and as the doors slowly open....a new man appears...

Well I've got there! Two Doctors done and coming soon I will be going over the years of the third Doctor - Jon Pertwee!

 

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Days 510 to 513 - City Of Death

...in which the Doctor and Romana take a trip to Paris and I get interviewed by the BBC.

Its been a crazy few days for the quest. On Day 511 I received a message that BBC Radio Stoke were trying to contact me! And yesterday (Day 512, the numbers are important, I am a geek after all) I gave an interview to Lee Thomas on his show. Lee was really nice about the whole thing and was really great to talk to. Luckily it was pre-recorded so I didn't have to worry about letting loose a swear word! Fortunately Lee didn't ask me about such stories as The Web Planet so swear words were not necessary. Overall I think it went quite well and hopefully I didn't come across like a total sad case. In the event that I have new people reading this blog who heard about me via the radio interview let me assure you that I do have other hobbies and (as unbelievable as it may seem) I have friends too! However it is true that my love for Doctor Who has reached OCD proportions.

So to this week's story. And it could quite possibly be my most favourite story ever! It's certainly in the top ten!

The story starts on a primeval Earth where a Jagoroth space ship is preparing to lift off. Unfortunately, the pilot, Scaroth makes a fatal error and the ship explodes causing Scaroth to be fragmented in 12 separate entities that are scattered through the history of Earth. One version of Scaroth is living in present day Paris where he is conducting time travel experiments in order to travel back in time 400 million years in order to prevent the explosion that destroyed the last of the Jagoroth and scattered him through time in the first place. What an amazing idea for a story!

Fortunately the Doctor and Romana are currently holidaying in Paris so are on hand to sort out the problem when they both start feeling the time distortions that are the side effects of Scaroth's time travel experiments. It's so nice to see Doctor Who filmed on location and the scenes here as the Doctor and Romana run around Paris sight seeing, accompanied by some of the best music in the show ever, are delightful. It's nice to see them having fun.

Scaroth himself is an interesting looking monster. A green head with lots of dangly bits and one giant eye in the middle of his forehead. Yuk! When my brother saw the cliffhanger to the end of episode one when Scaroth's face is revealed for the first time he recognised him as one of the monsters that he remembered scaring the crap out of him when he was younger! Luckily Scaroth can handily disguise himself as a human using a mask and turns himself into the very rich and charming Count Scarlioni played to perfection by Julian Glover.

The Count and his wife (who is blissfully unaware that she is married to a one eyed monster from out space) are planning on stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. And this is when the Doctor and Romana get on to their scent as the Doctor recognises the Countess using alien technology to scan the Louvre for it's security. They are not the only one on the Countess's tail as they find themselves teaming up with an undercover investigator, Duggan. Duggan is another great character in what is already a fantastic story. Duggan is one of those people whose solution to any problem is to punch it! Much to the Doctor's dismay.

Soon they are captured and taken to the Count's house where the Doctor find himself being flung to the ground by one of Scarlioni's henchmen leading to one of the best lines in Doctor Who history.

THE DOCTOR:- " I say, what a wonderful butler! He's so violent!"

This line is delivered with such glee by Tom Baker that it makes me laugh every time. The script for this story is fantastic and is full of very witty dialogue. Another personal favourite is the Doctor's line to the Countess:

THE DOCTOR:-" You're a beautiful woman...probably"

Locked up in Scarlioni's cellar they soon discover a hidden room where there is hidden another six copies of the Mona Lisa. These are not fakes, they are actual Mona Lisas painted by Leonardo DaVinci.

After travelling back in time to Leonardo's workshop, the Doctor discovers another version of Scaroth waiting for him in a brilliant cliffhanger to episode two. Scaroth is manipulating the human race in such a way as to allow his self in the future to have both the technology and the funding required in order for him to complete his time machine. This involves getting DaVinci to paint six additional copies of the Mona Lisa, then bricking them up in the cellar of the house that he knows his future self lives in. Then his future self can sell these paintings, after stealing the copy hiding in the Louvre so that each buyer believes they are buying the original and only copy of the Mona Lisa therefore giving him the fortune he needs to fund his experiments. Is that clear? As plans go, that's pretty bloody clever!

As the story reaches it's conclusion, the Doctor realises that Scaroth cannot be allowed to travel back in time to prevent his ship exploding as it was in fact the explosion of his ship and the resulting radiation that was the spark required to kick off life on Earth. I.e if Scaroth's ship never exploded then we would not exist.

After a brilliant scene when the Countess finally comes to her senses and confronts her alien husband (only to be brutally murdered), Scaroth's machine is completed and his journey back 400 million years into the past is made.

The Doctor, Romana and Duggan race to the art gallery where the Doctor has parked his TARDIS in order that they can intercept Scaroth and here we are given yet another treat! John Cleese cameos as an art expert who has mistaken the police box as a work of art "it has no call to be here and therefore the art lies in the fact that it is here!" As the two art lovers witness the TARDIS materialise they don't seem to bat an eyelid merely commenting "exquisite...absolutely exquisite"

As the TARDIS arrives back in primeval Earth, Duggan saves the day by completely laying out Scaroth in what the Doctor claims to be "the single most important punch in human history". It's a nice pay off for a character that at some point has knocked out about 75% of the characters in this story. In fact I've just remembered, I think he knocks out Scaroth in episode two too!

Finally, the Doctor and Romana bid goodbye to Duggan at the Eiffel Tower in a scene that I believe is being repeated by Doctor Who fans to this day. Unfortunately I have not been to Paris yet but when I do I must ensure to visit the Eiffel Tower, stand below it, look up to the top and scream at the top of my lungs "BYE BYE DUGGAN!!!!"

I could watch this story again right now! I mean what more do you want, it's got: Great plot, witty dialogue, great villain in the form of Julian Glover, some clever timy wimy stuff, Paris, fantastic music and a cameo from John Cleese!

This story, plus the radio interview and additional donations from the charity is just the motivation I need to spur me on further as the days of the fourth Doctor are coming to an end...



 

Season 6 - Days 210 to 253

Broadcast Dates: 10th August 1968 - 21st June 1969

Relative Dates: 19th June 2012 - 1st August 2012

I was through a rough patch in my quest, the majority of the missing stories were behind me and it was time to watch the season with the most complete second Doctor stories in it. Pretty sure I can remember these ones better. Let's see.....

The Dominators

The TARDIS lands on the peaceful planet of Dulkis. Unfortunately they are not the only visitors, the Dominators have also arrived!

The two Dominators in this story have an odd relationship with each other. Sometimes they seem like squabbling siblings and other times like husband and wife. The one Dominator's intense desire to "Destroy! Destroy!" everything he comes across only to be commanded to stop by his fellow Dominator leads to some quite amusing scenes..and yes you are correct in surmising that I have completely forgotten the bloody names of these characters! But look at their shoulder pads! Now they're impressive!

The Dominators have little square robot servants known as the Quarks, yet another attempt to generate the same success as the Daleks. Unfortunately they look like that they can very easily be pushed over and they're so damn cute that it's hard to feel any genuine threat from them.

This story demonstrates the drawbacks of pacifism as one of the Dominator's storms into a meeting of the council of the Dulcians who are completely unprepared for such a threat and simply agree to roll over since they are dead set against fighting.

Zoe does quite well in her first proper story after her debut. Here she teams up with one of the main Dulcians, Cully, who seems to take a bit of a shine to her.

The Dulcians have an even odder dress sense than the Dominators. All of them, even the men, wear dresses that look remarkably like a set of curtains.

This is quite a good story but at five episodes it does feel a little padded out at times. Quite a lot of time seems to be spent in travelling via rocket car to the Dulcian city and then back to the island where the Dominators have landed.

There are some amusing scenes when the Doctor and Jamie are captured by the Dominators who are assessing their intelligence leading to the Doctor and Jamie acting dumb when given even the simplest of tasks to perform.

We also get to see the Doctor's sonic screwdriver again (that's not a euphemism!) when he uses it to burrow out a tunnel so that they can intercept the bomb that the Dominators intend to drop into the core of the planet...for some reason.

The Mind Robber

This isn't the best picture to demonstrate the awesomeness of the The Mind Robber but it just made me giggle because the instrument that the Doctor is caressing looks a little rude. When I googled this story to find an appropriate picture there was one picture that was repeated over and over again, that of Zoe in a skin tight cat suit, lying on top of the TARDIS console as it spins through space after the TARDIS has exploded. Oh what the hell, here it is...

It's strange how this picture is so popular..

So to the story itself:

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are trapped in a world of fiction, complete with clockwork soldiers and unicorns (a brown horse with white powder all over it and a horn stuck on). In control of this world is The Master but not THE MASTER, he wouldn't show up for another couple of years.

The Doctor makes a good friend in the form of Gulliver from Gulliver's travels and this is one of the brilliant things about this story. I believe that every line spoken by Gulliver is actually one of the lines from the novel. It's all very clever stuff.

I'm jumping ahead of myself a little anyway. Episode one is very different to the rest of the story. The TARDIS lands in a white void in which both Jamie and Zoe get themselves lost after being tempted out of the safety of the ship by visions of home. The Doctor soon rescues them but the malevolent force has already got into the ship as we see it apparently explode leaving Jamie and Zoe spinning off through space. This is one of the best cliffhangers ever, especially when Zoe looks up to see the Doctor spinning off in the opposite direction. Her scream is blood curdling!

So then we find ourselves in the world of fiction where another bizarre incident occurs. Jamie gets turned into a cardboard cut out with a missing face and the Doctor has to choose from a set of eyes, noses and mouths to reassemble his face. He gets it completely wrong leading to Jamie reappearing, not as Frazer Hines but as another actor! The reason behind this was because Frazer Hines had contracted chicken pox so needed to take the week off. It was just fortunate that it came in the middle of such a strange story that they could do something like this and get away with it.

Along the course of the story we meet many fictional characters which leads me to a rather troubling thought..bear with me because this hurts my brain to think about. If all the characters in this world are fictional then is this some kind of acknowledgement that the Doctor himself is a fictional character?? It all gets very metaphysical and I'm probably reading way to much into it!

A good story overall. It's five episodes long again but it doesn't feel too padded as episode one seems to stand as it's own story as it's so different from the remaining four episodes. Additionally these are some of the shortest episodes ever! Traditionally episodes were about 23 minutes long but some of these episodes barely reach the 20 minute mark and I think episode five is something stupid like 18 minutes long. By this point it felt like a nice break after over 200 days of episodes!

The Invasion

The Cybermen are back...again! The fourth Cyberman story for the second Doctor. By this point they had truly replaced the Daleks as the main monster in the show.

However the Cybermen take a bit of a back seat here. In fact I don't think they even talk! They are allied with the director of International Electromatics, Tobias Vaughan. This guy has to be one of the best human villains in the show! He is played to perfection by Kevin Stoney who had previously played Mavic Chen in The Daleks' Master Plan. He speaks so calmly and coldly and is one of those villains that just seems so damn charming that you can't help but like him. He's clearly not a man to cross however as demonstrated in some of his less calm moments when he completely loses it!

All good villains need a hench man and we have him here in the form of Packer. A very nervous man, understandably.

Good God! I look Vaughan! He's just bloody amazing. And if you ever see me, ask me to do my impression of him, it's rather goof. Of course you probably won't know what Vaughan sounds like have never seen this story but trust me, it's spot on. Unfortunately I can only say "Packer!"

Another reason why I was excited to see this story was that it was eight episodes long with two of those episodes animated! No this wasn't some kind of follow on from the fictional pursuits of the The Mind Robber, it was done because two of the episodes were missing. Obviously this is a tragedy but for my purposes it was actually beneficial as it felt quite different and therefore was appreciated after watching over 200 episodes. These episodes were animated ages ago and at the time gave fans hope that all the other missing episodes would be animated. Unfortunately this has not been the case although there has been another surge in the amount of episodes they are animating. They have recently done episodes 4 and 5 of The Reign Of Terror, as well as episode 4 of The Tenth Planet and episodes 2 and 3 of The Ice Warriors. It's all very exciting.

Anyway, I'm going off topic. As if all this wasn't exciting enough, Lethbridge Stewert is back, now promoted to Brigadier! As mentioned before the character of the Brigadier is one of the most enduring in the show's history, having met most of the Doctors. In fact it was only the other day that I was watching The Wedding Of River Song which includes the heartbreaking scene of the eleventh Doctor learning of his old friends death as he realises that time catches up with all of us. Anyway that will be talked about in much much later blog entry!

So the Brigadier's back and this time he is with his specialised team that he has set up. UNIT (The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce). Again this is another big moment for the show. UNIT would feature a lot in the future and most heavily in the third Doctor's era.

I've just noticed that I've hardly mentioned the Cybermen. That's probably because they don't seem to be the main focus of the story. It's more about Vaughan and his manipulation of the Cybermen to help him achieve global domination. We do get to see some classic Cybermen scenes though as shown above when we see them popping up out of the sewers and invading London.

As the story comes to a conclusion and the cyber fleet approaches Earth, Zoe has a moment to shine as she swiftly calculates the optimal missile pattern to destroy every ship. Its obvious that the UNIT soldiers are impressed by her. Especially the one guy who blatantly checks out her ass as she walks past. Disgraceful!

The Krotons

Just when I was doing so well, I come to The Krotons. Another story that I can barely remember having only seen it once. I'll try my best anyway...

The Doctor meets a civilisation who is being oppressed by the Krotons. The Krotons are never seen by the normal people on the planet (the name of their race escapes me!) and only the cleverest are selected to enter the Krotons' ship. This is seen as being an honour but really they are being killed..I think.

The Krotons speak with a slight South African accent I think. It's a pretty strange thing to make up so I don't think I can be misremembering it.

Basically it's a pretty crappy story which is odd because its written (and this was his first story for the show) by Robert Holmes who would go on to write some of the best stories ever! Everyone has an off day I suppose. We also get to see Philip Madoc in his first Doctor Who role (not counting his role in the Peter Cushing Doctor Who movies as they don't count!). Philip Madoc is a spectacular actor who would appear in several future stories. Unfortunately he seems a little wasted here.

The Krotons are very "wobbly" robots and as such we don't see them move around all that often.

Jamie is a little sidelined too as he is considered too unintelligent for the Krotons needs. Of course brain box Zoe is around to impress and there are some fun scenes where she and the Doctor are competing for who is the most intelligent.

Overall conclusion: Not recommended!

The Seeds Of Death

The Ice Warriors return for another attempt to conquer the Earth. This time we get to meet "The Ice Lords" who appear to be superior to the normal warriors and more importantly speak a lot quicker! I don't think I motioned the voices in the review of the previous Ice Warriors story. They are quite creepy as they speak in a slow hiss but unfortunately it has the side affect of sometimes making them difficult to understand and extending the length of even the simplest conversation to mind numbing levels!

The Earth has become heavily reliant on the new form of instantaneous transportation known as T-MAT which has its central control on the surface of the moon which is unfortunately where the Ice Warriors land and turn this technology round on the humans by transporting seed pods to all cities of the world which eventually explode and cover the world in a poisonous foam.

With T-MAT being under the control of the Ice Warriors, the Doctor has to resort to using an "old fashioned" rocket to reach the moon. There is a nice little side plot here involving Professor Eldred who has always insisted that rocket travel should never have been replaced by T-MAT. As such when the T-MAT operators suddenly becoming reliant on his rocket, this makes him feel vindicated for his strongly held beliefs.

I also don't think I mentioned how cool the Ice Warriors guns are! .....I've just been sat here for the last 10 minutes trying to work out how to describe them! It's a very distinctive sound effect. I recently listed to an audio drama featuring the Ice Warriors and it was really cool to hear they had kept the same affect....another 5 minutes have passed and I still can't think how to describe the sound effect, you'll just have to trust me that it's good.

As the seeds explode, covering the Earth in a deadly foam/fungus we get some great scenes of the Doctor fighting his way through the foam to reach Jamie and Zoe. Patrick Troughton is clearly loving this and to be honest I don't blame him, it looks like the best foam party ever! In what is meant to be a dire situation for the Doctor we unfortunately see Wendy Padbury who plays Zoe pissing herself laughing at Patrick Troughton covered in foam as he falls through the door into the weather control centre. To be fair, it is quite funny.

I'm all Ice Warrior-ed out to be honest after seeing the fantastic Cold War this weekend, but more on that on Day 896. I'll get there one day..yes I shall get there...

The Space Pirates

Well what can I say about The Space Pirates? In fact what the hell CAN I say about The Space Pirates??

This was my final missing story to endure. Actually "endure" sounds like to harsh a word as some of the missing stories had been fantastic and the reconstructions done so well that it was almost like watching the actual episodes. Still, it was good to get to the other side of them as I knew they would be difficult.

This six part story with only one episode in existence was one of the hardest ones to get through. I can't say for sure whether it was because it was a poor story or because it was at the back of my mind that this was the last reconstruction that I would have to get through.

From what I can remember, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe don't turn up in the story for a very long time! I'd almost forgotten I was watching Doctor Who! The character in the picture above has a very strange accent. There's a lady with strange metal hair and lots of piratey shenanigans.. beautiful word that "shenanigans".

There are many scenes of ships flying through space, chasing each other etc which is a shame we can't see because I'm a sucker for old model shots.

I really should re-watch this one but...hmmm.. it wasn't that good. Don't get me wrong, if it's discovered I'll watch it! But maybe not bother with the reconstruction. Unless I start this quest all over again *shudders* No! I must not think of that! Besides I've got all of Blake's 7 to do next!

The War Games

Now this is a story I remember very well! Absolutely-bloody-brilliant!!

So many things to talk about here so lets get cracking.

First of all it exists which already makes it good! Its a ten episode story which would immediately make me think that it was going to drag along terribly but it really doesn't. It absolutely flies along!

The TARDIS lands in the middle of the first world war only for the Doctor to be declared a German spy by the rather suspicious British office, General Smythe. Smythe further arouses our suspicions when he is seen to put on a pair of small glasses that he uses to hypnotise his soldiers into believing everything is ok and that they have seen nothing out of the ordinary. He then proceeds to contact some kind of higher power via a television screen hidden behind a painting. Clearly something is very out of the ordinary.

After escaping, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find themselves in the middle of a Roman war and then the American Civil War. This is certainly not Earth. Humans have been kidnapped from various different eras of history and have been set down in various time zones in order that their actions can be monitored and they can be trained up to be the ultimate army.

Soon, the Doctor stumbles across a time travel capsule which has worrying similarities to that of his own TARDIS. Using this, he travels to the central command centre and we meet the people in charge of the whole thing.

The War Chief is overseeing the operation and we get a fantastic scene when the Doctor and him first meet when it becomes clear that they recognise each other. This is actually quite a big turning point in the series as the Doctor's species gets named for the first time. Both the Doctor and the War Chief are Time Lords! The War Lord (who is NOT a Time Lord despite his name) is the head guy in charge and has recruited the War Chief in order to utilise his time travelling knowledge.

The other main character in the central command is the Security Chief who has a very confrontational relationship with the War Chief and it is clear that they do not trust each other. This is exacerbated when the Security Chief realises the the Doctor is from the same planet as the War Chief so he suspect that there is some kind of plot going on.

The War Lord is played by the fantastic Philip Madoc. He plays the super criminal brilliantly. He understands that it's not always necessary to shout and rave to assert his power and can be quite soft spoken at times which is all the more creepy.

By the end of the story, Jamie and Zoe have managed to band together a group of soldiers from the resistance who storm the central command and take over. However the Doctor realises that taking everyone back to their correct times in history is far beyond his capability as he is still incapable of correctly steering his TARDIS. He has no alternative but to call for help from his own people, the Time Lords.

Now this is when the shit really hits the fan! It's clear from the way the War Chief reacts that he is terrified of his own people and even the Doctor tries desperately to escape once the message has been sent. The Time Lords arrival in the story still makes me shiver now. They appear pretty much like the hand of God. As the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe try desperately to get back to the TARDIS we hear the howling winds that signal the Time Lords arrival.

After a bit of a run around in the TARDIS it is clear that the Doctor is not going to get away this time and he is forced to return home.

TIME LORD:- "You have returned to us Doctor....your travels are over"

At this point in the shows history, the ratings had slipped a little and this would have been a perfect opportunity for the show to come off the air. Luckily this did not happen.

Taken back to the Time Lords' home planet (the planet itself was not named until the era of the third Doctor), Jamie and Zoe are forced to return to their own times. The tragic part of this is that they are to have their memories erased.

TIME LORD:- "They will be returned to a point in time just before they went away with you. They will remember their first adventure, but nothing more"

As companion leaving scenes go this is definitely one of the most heart breaking.

With his companions gone, all is left is for the Doctor to face his own trial for interfering in the affairs of other worlds. The Doctor puts forward a passionate case.

THE DOCTOR:- "All these evils I have fought, while you have done nothing but observe! True, I am guilty of interference. Just as you are guilty of failing to use your great powers to help those in need!"

And the Time Lords pass their final judgement.

JUDGE:- "We have noted your interest in the planet Earth....For this reason you will be sent back to that planet...in exile! And for this time the secret of the TARDIS will be taken from you"

After the Doctor pleads that he cannot be expected to live on only one planet and attempts to use his notoriety on the Earth as an excuse the judge deals a further blow

JUDGE:- "Your appearance has changed before, it shall do so again. That is part of the sentence"

And with that the Doctor is banished to Earth and a forced regeneration is placed upon him. Next time we would see the Doctor would be in a very different series. Jamie and Zoe had gone, the Doctor's appearance had changed, the Doctor was stranded on Earth and for the first time the series would be made in colour. Season 6 was over! And so was the era of the second Doctor!

So that wraps up Season 6. It took me quite a while to finish this blog entry! Must press on as there is a long way to go. My next "retrospective" blog entry will be my overview of the second Doctor himself as well as all his companions. Come back soon!

 

 





Days 506 to 509 - Destiny Of The Daleks

 

 

 

It had been over four years but they were finally back. The Daleks!

The usual tropes of a Terry Nation script are wheeled out again. Doctor and companion land on a planet, they spend the whole of the first episode exploring, get separated and then there is a surprise appearance of a Dalek as the cliffhanger.

Let's start at the beginning. The Doctor is in the TARDIS. He calls out for Romana but what appears to Princess Astra from the previous story steps out of the back room. Although its not Princess Astra, it is Romana who has decided to regenerate *nerd rage building* and so is trying on various bodies *nerd rage explodes*. I mean what the hell were they thinking?? We then go through a comedy routine involving Romana trying on various guises before settling back on the form of Astra. Absolute crap! It makes a mockery of the whole regeneration process! I love all Doctor Who, even the stories that have their serious faults but I find a good way to measure the success of a story is how I feel watching it with someone else. At this point, my brother happened to be watching it with me and I found myself having to apologise. Not good, not good at all.

There are some good moments though. The Doctor has installed a randomiser to the TARDIS console so that he can never be sure of where they are going to land and more importantly the Black Guardian can't follow them to seek vengeance for the Doctor seriously screwing up his plans by scattering the segments of the Key to Time. This means that the TARDIS lands on the Dalek home world of Skaro, but the Doctor is not aware of it, although he does claim to have a feeling that he has been there before.

The Doctor and Romana witness the landing of a Movellan ship which has to be one of the coolest ships ever. It lands on the surface and then drills down to hide just below the surface. The Movellans are a race of robots who have been at war the Daleks. Now this brings me to the second serious problem with this story. It is constantly stated that Daleks are also robots just like the Movellans. But they're not! Daleks are mutants that drive round in protective travel machines! They are NOT robots. And the whole plot revolves around the fact that these are supposed to be two robotic races that have reached a stalemate in their war because each fleet can anticipate and counter the other ones attacks because they are both working from pure logic. It's demonstrated fantastically by the Doctor and Romana in a game of rock, paper, scissors and it's actually a really cool idea. But the Dalek's aren't robots! So the whole thing falls apart!

Meanwhile the Movellans are at least humanoid robots so they can be played by real people as opposed to wobbly bits of metal. (I'm currently reviewing season six so I've got the Krotons stuck in my head! Now they were crap robots!)

The Daleks have returned to Skaro so that they can locate their creator, Davros, who can "reprogramme" their battle computers to give them the advantage. It's always good to see Davros back in the series and here he is for his second appearance. The scene where he is found, inert and covered in cob webs, only for his one eye to slowly light up and his hand to start moving is a really creepy scene and I must admit it was quite thrilling to watch. Unfortunately he is being played by a different actor who just seem to get the characteristics nailed as well as Michael Wisher did in Genesis Of The Daleks. Also there are some scenes where its really obvious that he is pushing his chair along with his feet as his whole body wobbles from side to side, which is kind of funny but a bit crap too.

The story ends with Davros imprisoned and being put into cryogenic stasis..but I'm sure I've not seen the last of him.

Days 500 to 505 - The Armageddon Factor

So the Doctor's epic 26 episode quest to assemble the Key To Time comes to and end in this six part story. It also brings to an end Season 16 with a bit of a fizzle (more on this later)

The Doctor and Romana land in the middle of a battle between the two planets of Atrios and Zeos. However nothing is quite as it seems and the war is actually being manipulated by the Shadow who is hiding out on a third planet between Atrios and Zeos.

The Doctor is instantly mistrusted upon his arrival on Atrios, especially by the warmongering Marshall (with his mighty shoulder pads!) who has been fighting for so long that he has whittled his fleet down to just a few ships. This brings me to one of my first gripes. The first couple of episodes include some space battles which would be fantastic to see but these are reduced to the Marshall watching the battles unfold as little blobs on his radar screen. I'm guessing that this being the last story of the season that the money may be running low in the budget.

The other characters we are introduced to are the Princess Astra and Merek, a couple secretly in love and hoping to find a peaceful end to the conflict. We also meet the hilarious Shapp, played by Davyd Harries. Now I say hilarious but...well..its a very odd performance. It's almost like he's acting in a completely different style to everyone else. It's very camp and pantomimey ....but I kind of like it. Especially when he gets shot, his reaction is brilliant. And he survives so I don't feel too bad about laughing and rewinding it back to watch it over and over again.

The Marshall takes a dislike to K9 (I can't really blame him) and sends him to be melted down with the rest of the metal scrap. This involves K9 being drawn along a conveyor belt getting hotter and more "melty". Just think the ending of Toy Story 3..but crapper and without the jeopardy.

Of course K9 is saved *unenthusiastic cheer* by the Doctor who scrambles along the conveyor belt to reach him. Despite K9 complaining about how hot it is its strange to note that the Doctor doesn't even bother taking his coat and scarf off. Maybe he doesn't feel the heat as much as humans or tin dogs do.

The Doctor travels to Zeos to find the planet deserted and being run by a super computer. The super computer, realising that the war is over and that the Marshall is about to launch a missile strike on the planet sets a self destruct system that will destroy both Atrios and Zeos. To give themselves more time to sort things out, the Doctor bodges together a fake sixth segment of the Key To Time so that he can establish a time loop around the entire universe! This means that the last 10 seconds of the countdown will constantly loop round. Unfortunately the time loop is degrading so they still don't have long to figure stuff out.

THE DOCTOR - "Someone somewhere has just slipped on a banana skin and is wondering when he's going to hit the ground"

This leads me to my second gripe. The time loop. It's a great idea and The Key To Time being used in such a way is good too as we get an example of what power it has so we know how big the stakes are. However I understand the idea that things are looping the first time I see it! I don't need to see the same clip 50 times!

On the third planet, the Doctor comes face to face with the Shadow, a truly creepy character who we learn has also been sent by a guardian to locate the six segments of the key. Of course he has been recruited by the evil black guardian. The Shadow's plan is actually quite ingenious. Instead of traipsing around the universe looking for the segments like the Doctor and Romana, he has simply located the sixth and final segment and then waited for the Doctor to come looking for it, bringing the other five segments with him.

Luckily the Doctor also finds help by meeting one of his old Time Lord friends, Drax. Drax refers to the Doctor as Theta Sigma. So is that the Doctor's name? I like to think it's his nickname, mainly because it's a crap name.

The sixth segment turns out to be Princess Astra herself who metamorphoses into the segment allowing the Doctor to complete the key. The white guardian arrives to collect the key but the Doctor realises he's really the black guardian so he splits the key up and scatters it through the universe again...so what was the point in that?? 26 episodes to put it together only to split it all apart again! The only explanation I can think of is that it was the black guardian in the first place who gave the Doctor the quest and the Doctor had only just realised that he has been used,

It's clear that the segments return to their previous state as evidenced by the nice scene we have of Merak meeting Princess Astra again. Of course this just makes me realise Delta Magna is going to have serious giant squid problem again when Kroll gets returned to them!

Overall I enjoyed this story, it does feel like an epic ending to the series and the Shadow is an excellent villain. It's just a shame that the final ending is a bit stupid. Still, it beats the ending of Lost!

Also a final pat on the back for me for meeting and exceeding my 500th episode! I genuinely never believed I could do it. Still a long way to go...

Season 5 - Days 170 to 209

Broadcast Dates: 2nd September 1967 - 1st June 1968

Relative Dates: 10th May 2012 - 18th June 2012

Talk about biting off more than you can chew! I'm not even sure if anyone is reading this but it does all need documenting for both myself and as proof for my challenge. If you don't think watching 900 consecutive days of Doctor Who is worthy of a small donation to Macmillan Cancer Support then surely the time I'm spending on this blog has got to be worth a few quid for charity! Anyway I'm moaning now. As much as I like Doctor Who, it can drive me a little nuts sometimes!

Anyway time for my thoughts on season 5. This was less than a year ago so hopefully I can actually remember this better than season 4...but I wouldn't hold your breath!

The Tomb Of The Cybermen

 

Now this is a story that I know very well. The Tomb Of The Cybermen is the first complete second Doctor story, rediscovered in Hong Kong in the early 90s. Apparently when fans saw it when it was discovered it came as a bit of a disappointment. The audio for the story had been so fantastic that the visuals could do nothing but let the story down.

Fortunately this was way before my time of being a Doctor Who fan and I think this story is absolutely bloody brilliant! Given the limited number of complete Patrick Troughton stories, this would definitely be the one I would choose to represent his time on the show.

The Cybermen have not been seen for hundred of years so a human expedition is sent to the planet Telos to find out what happened to them. Here they find the Cybermen in hybernation and it's not long before a power hungry member of the expedition team is waking them up to form an alliance with him to take over the Earth.

There are some great great great moments in this story. The Doctor accidentally holding Jamie's hand when he meant to hold Victoria's is a nice comedy moment. There also a very touching scene shared between the Doctor and Victoria where they discuss the death of Victoria's father and the Doctor discusses his own family. Such scenes were few and far between in the old days of the show and so this stands out as being simply superb.

The scenes of the Cybermen reawakening and breaking free of their honeycombed tombs is completely thrilling and is accompanied by some of the best music ever!

CYBERMAN - "You belong to us...You shall be like us..."

I also love the character of Viner, a man who is in a state of perpetual panic! He's hilarious because he always looks so damned worried! With good reason I suppose as he gets shot in episode 2.

We also see the signs of the Doctor's manipulative side. Despite the fact that he is trying to warn the humans away from the tombs, he lets his own curiosity get the better of him and it's actually the Doctor who opens the hatch allowed the humans access to the tombs in the first place!

Honestly, this story is fantastic. If you want to watch any second Doctor story then watch this one! Even if you don't really watch any of the old show, just give it a try and I reckon you'd like it.

There's probably loads more I could say about this one but I have to move on as I'm only supposed to be giving a brief summary of each story from the prior 500 days of my challenge. This story deserves a blog post all to itself!

The Abominable Snowmen

And so after being spoilt with a completely surviving story I was unfortunately back in the realms of fan reconstructions with this six part story which only has one episode still in existence.

I should really take this opportunity to say thanks to the fans who have made these reconstructions, especially the guys at Loose Cannon. Basically if you contact them to tell them the stories that you want then they give to some contact details, send them over some blank DVDs and they pop the episodes on. It's all free of charge too as they are not allowed to make money from the BBC copyright which is something I'm all too familiar with having been told off myself for selling Doctor Who scarves on Ebay! Anyway for the most part the reconstructions are excellent and it's not as distracting as you might imagine. The only problem being of course if there are long action sequences where you all you get is some blurry pictures, some descriptive text and a lot of loud grunting!

But to the story itself..

The story marked the first appearance of another continuing Doctor Who villain in the form of The Great Intelligence, more recently played by both Sir Ian McKellen and Richard E Grant in the new series. Just take a moment to think about that..what a cast!

Anyway here he has taken over a Buddhist monastery in 1930 and is creating robot Yetis to take over the world..I guess. My memory is failing a little again I'm afraid.

There is some great location work which I believe was filmed in Snowden, doubling as Tibet. It's just a shame that there was no snow at the time because that would have been the icing on the cake (so to speak) and made the whole thing more convincing.

The Great Intelligence has taken over the leader of the monastery Padmasambhava (good luck pronouncing that one!) and he gives a very creepy performance. His voice is just so damn scary!

The Doctor also makes a new friend here in the form of Professor Travers who is "Yeti hunting" when the Doctor and his friends meet him. Professor Travers would later in the same season in the story The Web Of Fear (which fortunately I know a little more about!)

Not much more I can think to say about this one which is a shame because I quite enjoyed it.

Back in "the olden days" before video releases of Doctor Who and before Doctor Who repeats (which we still don't get now from the classic series!) Fans would have to rely on the target novelisations of the stories to remind them of what they watched several years ago. Quite often, people would read the novelisations first and then see the stories (usually to be slightly let down when the visuals could inevitably not meet with their imagination). Therefore, so that I could appreciate their point of view, I did a little experiment here and read the novelisation before I'd watched the story. To be honest I enjoyed them both as much as each other. I certainly tore through the book which is unusual for me as I'm normally a slow reader.

I really haven't done this story service. Anyway must move on...

The Ice Warriors

This is an incredible run of stories when you think about it. The last episode of season four starred the Daleks, then this season started with the Cybermen. (Both fantastic returning monsters). And now we have had the introduction of The Great Intelligence, The Yeti and The Ice Warriors (who incidentally are also due to make their return in a few weeks time in the new series. Can't wait for that one!)

Fortunately this is a nearly complete story with four out of the six episodes existing. I believe they are currently in the process of animating episodes 2 and 3 for a DVD release and I can't wait to snap that up as I seriously need to re watch this story.

And one of the main reasons I need to re watch this story is because, yet again, I can't really remember it. This is getting embarrassing. My knowledge of the first couple of seasons of Doctor Who is pretty good because I've watched those stories a lot. But now I'm in the realms of the semi-complete to non existing stories (i.e all the ones that haven't officially come out on DVD yet) then my knowledge is lacking and so I'm trying to rack my brains to nearly a year ago to remember this story which I've only seen once!

What is an Ice Warrior actually called? We call them Ice Warriors simply because we found them frozen in ice but I don't think their real name has ever been revealed. They have hands like Lego men which is quite amusing and originate from the planet Mars (not sure how that's going to be ret-conned into the new series since we have now sent probes to Mars. I'm guessing they lived underground.

The Ice Warrior we see at the beginning of the story actually gets redesigned after it's first appearance which is unusual. I think they did a similar thing with the Sensorites in season 1.

Also Peter Sallis is in this story (Wallace from Wallace and Gromit) which is something I had no idea about until I watched this story so was quite exciting to see. It's a good performance too and so different from the other roles he's famous for (i.e Wallace and Clegg from Last Of The Summer Wine) so it was quite cool to see.

The Enemy Of The World

It seems each Doctor has to have an obligatory story where the actor who plays the Doctor, plays both the Doctor and another character. William Hartnell played both the Doctor and the Abbott Of Amboise and now it's Patrick Troughton's turn. Here he plays both the Doctor and the villainous Salamader (who has a very strange accent...possibly Mexican?)

The Doctor having a doppelganger is played out much better than it was in The Massacre. Not long after the TARDIS lands the Doctor gets roped into the rebel schemes and persuaded to take on the persona of Salamader.

I remember this being one of the stories that really gripped me. I knew very little about it before I watched it so wasn't sure what to expect. I remember when it started it was very "James Bond" like with an exciting helicopter chase across a beach. I think the helicopter ends up getting blown up but I may be wrong. Unfortunately this was all in a missing episode so I can't really pass judgement on how well this was all realised.

Halfway through the story, there is a side plot that is suddenly introduced involving Salamader keeping people trapped underground by convincing them that there has been a huge nuclear war and that the Earth is now full of hideous mutants. Again I can't really remember why he does this. My God! Considering I keep telling people that Patrick Troughton is one of my favourite Doctors, it seems I know very little about his stories!

It takes until episode 6 for the Doctor to finally come face to face with Salamander inside the TARDIS which I remember being rather exciting. This is another story I need to revisit when this quest is over because it was actually really good and I can remember very little about it which is beyond annoying and I refuse to cheat by checking on wikipedia. This is why I should have kept up to date with the blog as I went along but there's no sense crying over spilt milk I suppose.

Patrick Troughton does give a fantastic performance as Salamander though. I haven't seen Patrick Troughton in anything else besides Doctor Who so it's very strange seeing him play a different character but it goes to show what a great actor he is as Salamader is so significantly different to the Doctor that its sometimes hard to believe its the same man playing him.

The Web Of Fear

The Yeti are back! And this time they have invaded London via the underground system. This could be argued as being the Doctor's fault because it seems the eleventh Doctor let slip to The Great Intelligence that the London underground was a key strategic weakness. It's all very wibbly wobbly timey wimey!

Professor Travers is also back, this time as older man as this is set about 30 years later than The Abominable Snowmen (I think..dating issues is something I'll go into when discussin the era of the third Doctor, more familiarly known as "The UNIT dating controversy")

Something I didn't mention when talking about The Abominable Snowmen was that Professor Travers is played, both in that story and this one, by the father of Deborah Watling who plays Victoria. There's a lot of family ties like that in Doctor Who.

London has been evacuated and a group of soldiers are attempting to hold the Yeti back in the underground. It's very exciting to see the first appearance of Colonel Lethbridge Stewert (later to be promoted to Brigadier). The importance of this character to the history of Doctor Who cannot be understated. As to whether or not he is classed as a companion can be argued. In many way he seems more than a companion. After meeting the second Doctor, he would go on to meet the third, fourth, fifth and seventh Doctors so he is one of the Doctor's most enduring friends. In this story is seems that the Colonel is a character that we are supposed to be suspicious of. Looking at this from a modern perspective this doesn't really work as we know the Colonel is probably the person that the Doctor can trust the most!

The Doctor comes up with a plan to vanquish The Great Intelligence once and for all. Unfortunately due to Jamie and Victoria not understanding that that is what he is doing, they attempt to save the Doctor at just the wrong moment, meaning that The Great Intelligence is defeated this time, but would be free to return once again....played by Sir Ian McKellen in 2012. Haha! Sorry I just can't get over how awesome that is!

Fury From The Deep

How scary is the above picture?? This is from one of the scariest scenes ever where two men quietly enter the room of a young woman and proceed to gas her by ejecting poisonous gas from their lungs. Very very creepy, this must have given kids nightmares.

The TARDIS lands on the coast (in fact I think it lands on top of the sea!) and Jamie and Victoria are soon investigating a strange pipe on the beach. To explore it further the Doctor produces an instrument from his pocket, the sonic screwdriver! Another first for the show!

Memory is failing again here! Can't say I really enjoyed this one. It's 6 episodes long and none of the episodes exist. Luckily the above clip was considered too scary for Australian viewers and was cut from their version so is actually one of the only surviving moments from the whole story.

Theres a long helicopter sequence in a later episode where the Doctor struggles to fly it away from the rig out at sea. This goes on for a far too long, making what should be exciting into something quite tedious! Especially becuase we can't even see the bloody thing!There's also a lot of foam being produced by something. I think maybe the foam was the villain..possibly.

There is nice development for Victoria here though as she slowly gets more and more hystericla throughout the story and realises that she really is not enjoying the adventures with the Doctor anymore and so she decides to stay behind and is adopted by a kind couple. The last half of the last episode is given over to Victoria's leaving of the show which is nice to see, specifially after the rather abrupt exits of Dodo, Ben and Polly. It's also quite touching when Victoria asks Jamie not to leave without saying goodbye.

I liked Victoria, it's just tough luck for here that so few of her stories exist anymore.

The Wheel In Space

 

So with Victoria gone it’s time to meet the new companion – Zoe. Zoe is a nice contrast to Victoria. Whereas Victoria was a companion from the past, Zoe is a companion from the future.

 

Actually, it’s only just struck me that for the past few stories the Doctor has had two companions that are both from the past. Poor Katarina must have been spinning in her grave (if she had a grave, she’s probably still a spinning frozen corpse in space)

 

Also the Cybermen are back! Now Cybermen tend to have really convoluted plans for domination but this one takes the biscuit! I can’t fully remember it (surprise, surprise!) but it involves about 10 different chain of events being set off at just the right time. Ridiculous!

 

Whereas the Daleks had been the main foil for the first Doctor, the Cybermen are definitely the main enemy of the second Doctor having appeared in three stories so far out of two seasons.

 

Most of the main action takes place on a space station, i.e The Wheel in Space where Zoe is working. Not quite sure what her job is but she’s certainly an annoying “know-it-all”! Luckily this will be toned down in later stories and she will become quite a likeable companion.

 

The end of the story is a very strange one. With Zoe coming on board the TARDIS the Doctor thinks it only right that she should be warned of what adventures and dangers lie ahead for her. Surely the recent adventure with the Cybermen should be a fair warning! Anyway, the Doctor sits her down to watch The Evil Of The Daleks from the last season. I think this is explained as the Doctor feeding his thoughts and memories into the TARDIS monitor.

 

Now this is interesting for two reasons. First of all, what are the chances that the clip we see at the end of this story is actually one from the only episode of The Evil Of The Daleks that still exists! That’s so annoying as if they had played any other clip from that story then we would have another surviving clip..it that makes sense. Also the reason for this bizaare action is that with season five coming to and an end with this story the BBC wanted to show a repeat of The Evil Of The Daleks and so it was actually linked into the final story of season five. How very weird! Now it could be (very loosely) argued that that means I should have to watch The Evil Of The Daleks AGAIN! But then I decided I was being too nit picky so went straight on to season 6 and some surviving stories! Yay!

 

It was getting tough with so many missing episodes but season five was finally complete and I was beginning to see the light with a mostly complete run of stories for season six..the dark days were finally behind me. Come back soon for season six!