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!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Days 496 to 499 - The Power Of Kroll

I've been off work this week on Easter break. Fortunately I haven't actually gone away so it was no hassle to get in the 4 episodes of The Power Of Kroll.

It seems that I have finally hit a low point in The Key To Time season here. Whilst it's not a bad story I think it's definitely the weakest one of the season so far.

I can't really pinpoint what it is about this story that makes it suffer for me. Watching one episode every day as I have been doing it is sometimes hard to work out whether I haven't enjoyed a story due to it being a poor story or due to my general mood at the time.

Anyway, to the story itself. The TARDIS materialises in a swamp which is actually really well realised in the location work done. The main thrust of the story is the animosity between two groups on the planet. The humans, who have set up a methane mining installation, and the Swampies who are the native people of the planet. It reminds me very much of Colony In Space.

Meanwhile to add further jeopardy the ancient creature Kroll has awoken and terrorises both groups. The leader of the Swampies, Ranquin, is an interesting character who believes that Kroll is their God and it's quite funny to watch how he keeps changing his God theories to fit in with the changing facts around him as Kroll turns on more and more people.

K9 is not in this story. (It was filled in a swamp so it probably wasn't very practical for him!) However John Leeson who voices the robot dog is not given the time off as he is actually used as one of the actors in the story, playing the human, Dugeen. It must have been nice for him to finally get his face seen in Doctor Who.

Some of the effects are a little ropey as evidenced in the picture above. However some effects are pulled of quite well including all the times when Kroll grabs hold of someone with his giant tentacles and pulls them down through the swamp.

The Doctor soon realises from reading an ancient book that Kroll is a regular giant squid that has grown to even greater size by eating the "symbol of power" which ends up being the fifth segment of The Key To Time.

When I find a Doctor Who story poor, it usually starts off well and goes downhill. Strangely I found the opposite here. I really didn't enjoy episode 1 but then things picked up. Thinking about it I was very hungry when watching episode 1 so may have just been hoping it would end soon so that I could get food. This is exactly what I meant when I said that my mood can affect how I feel about a story.

So the Doctor's quest to locate all six segments of The Key To Time is almost over. I can't believe how fast it's gone! Just one more segment is needed and then The Key will be complete!

Season 4 (Part 2 of 2) Days 135 to 169

Broadcast Dates: 5th November 1966 - 1st July 1967

Relative Dates: 5th April 2012 - 9th May 2012

Well I'm slowly catching up with this blog, time to talk about the days I spent watching the first stories of the second Doctor - Patrick Troughton.

The Power Of The Daleks

 

 

Of all the stories to be missing from the BBC archives I think this is the one that hurts the most. A six part story seemingly lost forever with just the audio and a few snapshots remaining. The reason why I say it's the one that hurts the most is that there is so much here that would be fantastic to see such as Ben and Polly's reactions to the "renewed" Doctor.

 

 

Speaking of the Doctor I think it's worth acknowledging here what a truly brave decision it was to replace the lead actor in such a way. I'm sure actors had been replaced in other programmes prior to this but here the change was actually acknowledged on screen. Also the obvious decision would have been to replace the actor with another William Hatnell-like actor to keep a firmer continuity in the character. Do they do that here? Nope! They completely change both the Doctor's look and personality. This must have been so freaky to watch when it was first broadcast!

 

BEN - "It's not only his face that has changed! He doesn't even act like him!"

 

Ben and Polly are instrumental in the changeover period. They question the Doctor's identity and basically act as the viewers as at least some reassurance as to what the hell is going on. At this stage the term "regeneration" is still not being used and the Doctor implies that his renewal, as he calls it, is actually part of the TARDIS functions. Additionally the Doctor's clothes somehow manage to change with him!

 

This is without a doubt one of the second Doctor's finest stories, despite the fact that Patrick Troughton has not yet quite developed the character that we would go on to love. In his first scenes he refers to himself in the third person

 

THE DOCTOR -  "The Doctor was a great collector wasn't he?"

 

 

The Doctor's new habit of playing the recorder whenever he is trying to think is in full force in this story. He plays it a lot! Maybe this is just more noticeable due to the lack of moving pictures and therefore the further reliance on the audio.

 

 

So to the actual story. The TARDIS lands on the planet Vulcan (but not that planet Vulcan..I'm not sure who had the name first actually, Star Trek or Doctor Who?) where they find a human settlement that have started the process of using Daleks as their willing servants. Of course the humans are not aware of the Dalek's true nature and some really great scenes come out of this where the Doctor is desperately trying to persuade the colonists that the Daleks cannot be trusted.

 

The Daleks are using the humans to receive the power supply and parts they need to create more Dalek travel machines and therefore reproduce.

 

 

Meanwhile there is another side plot going on where a rebel group of colonists who want to overthrow the current regime are planning on using the Dalek servants as weapons in their plans. The Daleks play off the two group of humans excellently for their own needs. Never before have the Daleks been so devious!

 

The Highlanders

 

Another 4 part (completely missing story!!) and to be honest I can remember very little about it! Sorry!

 

From what I remember I think Polly has quite a good story, getting quite involved in what's going on instead of just being relied upon to make coffee. Also the second Doctor continues to pine after the perfect hat which was a weired little habit that was introduced and soon forgetten about. I wonder of that is why the eleventh Doctor is so fond of his fez..

 

There are two important factors about this story that should be noted. Firstly this is the last of the purely historical stories. By "pure historical" I mean a story set in the past without any alien or sci fi related matters (apart from the Doctor himself of course). Up until now the series had tried to alternate between historical stories and straight out sci fi stories. In fact the first two companions, Ian and Barbara, clearly signposted this intention with one being a history teacher and one being a science teacher. It seems that at this point it was decided to drop the historical stories which is a shame because some of the early historical stories are very good.

 

Secondly this story introduces one of the longest running Doctor Who companions in the form of Jamie McCrimmon. In fact he may be the longest serving companion ever but I'm not sure. He's definitely a contendor! Jamie appears in every single second Doctor story, except Power Of The Daleks (and arguably The Three Doctors if you want to be nit picky!)  The relationship between Jamie and the Doctor would be one of the most successful and enduring but it seems odd here that he joins the TARDIS as he doesn't really seem to do much in this story.

 

The Underwater Menace

 

Until very recently this story had 3 out of the 4 episodes missing but back in 2011 another episode was found! I'm not sure how to describe to non Doctor Who fans just how exciting the discovery of a missing epiosde is as there is no comparison that I can draw. Unfortunately the discoveries are drying up now. I believe the last discovery prior to 2011 was in 2004 so as you can see they are few and far between! There probably always will be 106 missing Doctor Who stories (oh how I hope that I'm wrong!)

 

Anyway, the TARDIS lands on a beach and soon the Doctor and his companions find themselves travelling under the sea to the lost city of Atlantis. Not sounding great? That's because it's not great to be honest. Living with the Atlanteans is the crazy scientist Professor Zaroff who has promised the Atlanteans that he can raise the city from the sea again. In fact what he really intends to do is blow a hole in the planet so that the oceans drain into the core of the Earth and boil away until the planet explodes. Now you may be wondering why he would want to do this and this leads me to something that I actually quite like about this story. Zaroff doesn't want to take over the planet or hold the world to ransom, he simply wants to destroy it for the pure scientific achievement! The three words, Stark, Raving and Mad spring to mind.

 

Zaroff is such an over the top character that I can't help but enjoy watching him especially when he works himself up into such a frenzy that he screams the immortal line:

 

PROF. ZAROFF "Nothing in the world can stop me now!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

Brilliant

 

The Moonbase

 

The Cybermen are back! And this time they're on the moon!

 

The Cybermen have had a redesign and are now looking more like the Cybermen that we are used to. The Cybermen have got to be one of the Doctor Who monsters that changes the most during the course of the show. Everytime we see them they seem to look and sound slightly different. I guess they must be constanty upgrading themselves.

 

So I believe (again my memory is failing me, that's why I should have kept up with this blog at the time!) that they are trying to invade the moonbase (well done Sherlock!) so that they can use the Gravitron in the base that the humans use to control the weather on Earth. The Cybermen will then be able to use the Gravitron to destroy the Earth.. I guess.

 

I'm not sure if this story was written before they decided that Jamie would be coming on board the TARDIS as he seems to be pretty much written out of the story when he gets injured early on and conseuquently spends the rest of the story in the sick bay of the moonbase.

 

One of the greatest moments occurs when, knowing there is a Cyberman lurking around somewhere, a full search is put orchestrated using the sick bay as the HQ. No Cyberman is found and then the Doctor realises it's because the only room they have not checked...is the room they are currently standing in! We suddenly see a Cyberman whip back the cover from the bed he has been hiding in. So so spooky.

 

Patrick Troughton is finally devloping into the true Doctor that he would later become. Some of his clowning around is toned down and we get some superb dialogue from him including one of my favourite quotes of all time:

 

THE DOCTOR "There are some corners of the universe that have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything that we believe in. They must be fought!"

 

I remember a few years ago when I went to see Doctor Who Live. The story was basically about a guy who had captured loads of Doctor Who monsters that he then brought out for our entertainment. After a few less frightening aliens were paraded in front of us, he suddenly went deadly serious, turned to us and said "There are some corners of the Universe that have bred the most terrible things.." and I got goosebumps because I knew exactly which creatures were being brought out next!

 

 The Macra Terror

 

 A while back when Matt Smith appeared on Alan Carr's Chatty Man, Alan introduced him as "The only doctor who never has to deal with a bad case of crabs" or something along those lines anyway.

 

Now I like Alan Carr but this comment clearly shows what lack of research he must have put into that joke as in this story the Doctor has to cope with a serious case of crabs! Giant ones.

 

I'm really struggling to remember some of these Patrick Troughton stories! In my defense I've only watched most of them once and when I say "watched" I mean staring at still images whilst listening to the audio for the post part. Again this is a completely missing story.

 

The Macra look pretty terrible it's got to be said. In fact they look so bad that I'm convinced that if another missing epiosde does turn up then it'll be one from The Macra Terror just because fate can be a really bastard sometimes (sorry fate, love you really!)

 

The Macra are using and oppressing humanity and there is some good old fashioned mind control going on here when Ben is turned against his friends.

 

I hadn't seen this story before seeing the tenth Doctor story Gridlock in which the Macra make a surprise return. I'm not sure how I would have reacted. I think seeing the surprise return of any old adverosry would have elicited a feeling of thrilling excitement from me, but in this case I think I would have just been left bewildered "Really?... They brough the Macra back?....Why?"

 

Not recommending this one I'm afraid!

 

The Faceless Ones

 

The TARDIS lands at a London airport and the team get separated as they run away from an approaching aircraft. Soon the Doctor realises that something is seriously wrong with the sinister company, Chameleon Tours.

 

I really enjoyed this story despite the fact that only 2 out of the 6 episodes still exist. It's a crying shame because there are some really good ideas going on here, with aliens kidnapping young people by putting them on an aeroplane which is then flown straight upwards into space to dock with a spaceship. This part happens in one of the episodes that is now missing and it would be great if we could see how the model work was pulled off.

 

Ben and Polly go missing fairly early on in this story and it very quickly becomes the Doctor and Jamie's show. This is the Patrick Troughton era that I am most familiar with, the Doctor and Jamie.

 

Ben and Polly turn up at the end of the story to discover that the date that the TARDIS is landed in is in fact the exact same date that they started travelling with the Doctor way back in The War Machines. Discovering this, they decide to stay behind on Earth. I'm not really sure what I feel about Ben and Polly as most of their stories are missing but they were very important to the series as they helped to bridge the gap between the first and second Doctors.

 

Now then, do you remember way back when I spoke about The War Machines, I told you to bear in mind the Doctor's comments about feeling that the Daleks are near despite the fact they they don't appear in that story? I didn't think you would. But I did say that. Well the interesting thing is that the next story, The Evil Of The Daleks continues straight from The Faceless Ones in the same time and place. And since we know that the Faceless One is actually set at the same time as The War Machines then the First Doctor was correct when sensing that the Daleks were near because they were in fact setting a trap for his future incarnation! I think that's interesting anyway. To be honest I don't think it was planned. I think it was just a happy coincidence.

 

The Evil Of The Daleks

 

 And so season 4 comes to a close with this fantastic epic Dalek story!

 

The Dalek's kidnap the Doctor and Jamie and transport them back in time to the Victorian era and the home of Edward Waterfield who has been conducting experiments in time travel, which unfortunately allowed the Daleks through into our world. There are so so many great moments in this story. When the Doctor and Jamie first get transported back through time, they have no idea that the Daleks are behind it all and the first reveal of the Dalek to the Doctor as it bursts out of the time cabinet is beyond thrilling!

 

DALEK - "NOW  DO YOU UNDERSTAND DOCTOR?!"

 

The Daleks tell the Doctor that they realise they are missing something from their DNA meaning they are not quite ideal for surviving. They realise that humans are the great survivors and therefore are trying to develop "the human factor" so that it can be introduced into the Daleks themselves. To do this, they persaude the Doctor to secretly put Jamie through a series of tests. This shows some of the first signs of how the second Doctor can be quite manipulative and his treatment of his companion is a little shocking leading to a massive row between himself and Jamie which is played to perfection by Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines. Jamie takes the bait however and sets off to rescue Edward Watefield's daughter, Victoria. Meanwhile he is being monitored by the Doctor and the Daleks so that they can extract the human factor.

 

Another great moment comes when the Doctor finally injects some Daleks with the human factor and they being acting like little children. They start "playing trains" with the Doctor, pushing him round on a chair. Just like in The Power Of The Daleks, we are seeing a whole new side to the Daleks in this story.

 

Finally the story takes another leap as we are transported to the Daleks home world of Skaro where the Doctor finally comes face to face with the Emperor Dalek as shown in the picture above. The Emperor reveals the Daleks true plan. Instead of trying to work out the human factor, they are actually going to reverse the idea and use the findings of the Doctor to inject all humans with the Dalek factor making them Human-Dalek hybrids!

 

The Doctor creates his own army of Daleks to fight back by tricking them into being subjected to the human factor and a huge civil war kicks off on Skaro between the two factions! In the process Edward Waterfield is killed, which conveniently leaves Victoria Waterfield as yet another orphan that the Doctor can take with him on his travels.

 

This would be the last Dalek story for a long time and in fact the Doctor believes this to be "the final end" of them. In fact this was intended to be the final end of the Daleks and the Daleks creator, Terry Nation was attempting to mount his own Dalek television show in America meaning that they needed to be written out of Doctor Who. In fact, it would only be a matter of time before the evil pepper pots would make their return!

 

Well there we have it! It took me a couple of blog posts to get this one complete but that is Season Four complete. My next entry will most likely be on The Power Of Kroll which is the story I'm just about to finish watching and then I'll return to my look back at the prior seasons with my review of Season Five! I can almost sense your mounting anticipation!

 



 



The First Doctor

For those of you unfamiliar with the stories of the first Doctor then check out this YouTube tribute by the fantastic Babelcolour. It perfectly sums up the first Doctor era.

I thought I would make a few comments about the First Doctor and each of the companions who travelled with him. I will not be making any comments about Ben and Polly yet as they are still travelling with the second Doctor so they will be included in my summary of his time. So here goes:

The Doctor

Not always ranked very high on the list of favourite Doctors, William Hartnell should at least be given credit as the man who started it all. I happen to think that he made a bloody fantastic Doctor and one who had a real character development throughout his tenure.

From the first episode the Doctor wasn't necessarily a person you would like to meet. He effectively kidnaps Ian and Barbara, is prepared to kill a caveman who is slowing down their escape, will lie to his companions to force them to explore the Dalek city for his own curiosity. Then of course there's the story when his real paranoia about Ian and Barbara makes him completely lose it with them and he demands they leave the ship, no matter where the ship may land, effectively throwing them overboard!! From here, after he discovers the error of his ways, he softens down a great deal and although he is still prone to angry outbursts when he doesn't get his own way, he becomes a much gentler character and is actually actively seeking out ways to help the people he encounters rather than simply try to run back to the TARDIS as the first sign of trouble.

The Doctor would go on to form true bonds with the companions he travelled with along the way. The most significant of these for me always seems to be the story of Ian and Barbara. From being two interlopers that were thrust upon him, by the the time it comes for them to leave the Doctor is genuinely upset to see them go.

William Hartnell was a fine actor, he could do both the serious and the funny stuff excellently. He is also well known for his many famous slip ups with his lines, fondly nicknames "Billy-Fluffs". Back in the 60s television shows would tend to recorded as if they were going out live. Editing was a pretty expensive business back then so pretty much if you made a mistake with one of your lines then it would have to stay in. Therefore some absolute corkers go through! eg "anti radiation gloves....drugs!"..."floating around in Spain...space!" etc

By the end of his time on the show William Hartnell was suffering from ill health but it's rather sad the way he was treated for his last few stories as he was gradually phased out of the series.

Susan Foreman

The Doctor's granddaughter. There's still a great deal of mystery around Susan. It seems strange looking back on the series that one of the Doctor's first ever companions was actually a member of his own family. But what happened to her mum and dad? These are things that we still do not know 50 years down the line!

I've never been a great fan of Susan unfortunately. She always seems to be the one who goes hysterical or twists her ankle and at times this can cause the Doctor to be taken out of the story as he is having to constantly look out for his granddaughter.

There are some stories where she is allowed to shine, such as in The Sensorites when she develops psychic powers but these developments are few and far between. She also has some nice moments when she shares a story with someone around her (apparent) age, for example her relationship with Ping Cho in Marco Polo.

As much as I don't really like Susan as a companion I do have to admit that she has one of the finest leaving scenes in the shows history and William Hartnell's parting message to her would be one of the most well known moments of his tenure.

Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright

I wasn't sure whether to mention these two separately but decided to talk about them together as they really do form a team and if Sarah Jane's research is correct actually end up getting married upon their return to Earth!

Absolutely two of my all time favourite companions. Everything from the way they are forced into travelling in the TARDIS and going on these wild adventures, right up to their eventual leaving scene which surpasses even Susan's, it's all fantastic.

Barbara development from being a "a very unwilling adventurer" to being the woman who is trying to instigate a complete revolution to the Aztecs way of life, you can see how life in the TARDIS and all the possibilities that presents has rubbed of on her.

Meanwhile Ian is very much the action hero. With the Doctor being an old man it would be difficult to take part in some of the more action orientated scene such as jumping across chasms and getting into sword fights (although the Doctor does get into some of his own sword fights). Therefore Ian fills this role in the show.

Also during the earlier stages of the show it was very much Ian and Barbara who were considered the main characters. The Doctor started of as a bit of an anti hero and more of a device to move Ian and Barbara from A to B and cause conflict within the group. Therefore Ian and Barbara were two of the most important companions in the entire history of the show. Jacqueline Hill who played Barbara is sadly no longer with us but William Russel who played Ian is still alive and it would be awesome to see him make a reappearance in the 50th anniversary special. Not sure how they'd get around the fact that Ian and Barbara are not supposed to have aged since the 60s according to Sarah Jane's research. Maybe her research was flawed...

Vicki

Vicki was brought in to be the "Susan replacement" and she fills the role perfectly without any of the annoying aspects of Susan. For a start she is not the Doctor's granddaughter so he can be a little bit more independent of her as he does not have to be protective of her. That sounds awful, he is protective of her obviously but..well she's not family..so it's not quite the same..if you get what I saying.

Vicki is allowed to get up to her own adventures, away from the Doctor where as Susan would pretty much just tag along with her Grandfather. It's Vicki who persuades the Doctor to show Ian and Barbara how to pilot the Dalek time machine back to their own time and space. She's also there to help introduce Steven to life travelling in the TARDIS. She's not my favourite of companions but I do like Vicki.

Steven Taylor

It's quite difficult to judge Steven as a companion as he has the sad misfortune of having most of his stories missing. It seemed strange at first to see Peter Purves in an acting role as he more well known now as a presenter. The stories he shares with Vicki are all pretty good but he never really seems to gel with Dodo.

He also has quite a confrontational relationship with the Doctor, most famously evidenced at the end of The Massacre when he storms out of the TARDIS after the Doctor has left thousands of people to be slaughtered.

Katarina

One of the more ill conceived ideas for a companion. Katarina was a replacement for Vicki after Vicki left during the events of The Myth Makers. Unfortunately it was quickly realised that a companion from ancient history was never going to work as she would inevitably spend too long asking to many questions and be completely confused as to what was going on around her.

However her introduction to the series is not a complete loss as we get the first companion death in the shows history during the events of The Daleks' Master Plan. Poor Katarina. She was only in the show for a few episodes and she still gets a better exit than Dodo will!

Sara Kingdom

Is Sara Kingdom officially a companion? A bit of a grey area here. Companions usually tend to be those characters who travel from one story to the next and Sara Kingdom is actually only in the one story..and yet she does do a fair bit of travelling round in the TARDIS and as such some people consider her to be a companion...Honestly! Some Doctor Who fans have proper debates about such important matters!

Unfortunately having only seen The Daleks' Master Plan once I don't have a great memory of her character. I know she kills her own brother which is pretty shocking and then goes on to have one of the most horrific deaths at the end of the story as she ages to death on a dying planet! The Daleks' Master Plan really is a blood bath for companions!

Dodo Chaplet

Dodo arrives at the end of The Massacre, apparently as one of the ancestors of Anne Chaplet whom Steven had befriended and feared to be dead. When she first arrives she has quite a strong Mancunian accent which stood out at the time as being unusual in Doctor Who. Unfortunately by the next story it was deemed that her accent should change. No explanation was given of course. Maybe it was the TARDIS's telepathic circuits working on her speech so that more aliens would understand her. I'm grasping at straws here!

She also famous as having officially (there is no doubt about it) the worst leaving in Doctor Who. She just disappears with just a message left for the Doctor that she is staying on Earth. Utter crap!

So there we go. The first Doctor's era is complete. Coming soon are my thoughts on the second half of Season 4 as the tenure of the second Doctor begins!