OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 094
STORY NUMBER: 021
TRANSMITTED: 04 December 1965
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Donald Tosh
PRODUCER: John Wiles
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Collection: (1965-1966) No. 2
Katarina struggles with Kirksen in the airlock. He demands to be taken to Kembel but Katarina releases the airlock door killing both of them. The Doctor, Steven & Bret Vyon head towards Earth making for a experimental facility run by Bret Vyon's friend Daxtar. Chen dispatches a squad of Special Space Services personnel to catch them led by Sara Kingdom. Daxtar betrays them and is killed by Bret. Chen files a report with the Daleks implicating Trantis in the theft of the Taranium. While trying to escape the building Bret Vyon is killed by Sara Kingdom who orders her agents hunt the Doctor and Steven and to "shoot on sight" and "aim for the head".
Separated from the Tardis and pursued by the Daleks, the Doctor looses a companion, Katarina, and then Bret Vyon, his only ally in this time is also killed. This episode really ups the stakes now you feel the Doctor's friends and companions have been killed. There's a real feeling of desperation at the episodes end, and it feels less like a Children's program that at any time in the show's history so far.
When Ian Levene first visited the BBC Film & Video library they had records of 48 episodes of Doctor Who. 47 were present in the library, one was missing: this one. Leant to Blue Peter for us in a 1973 edition, The Traitors was never returned and is missing to this day. The only surviving footage from the episode comes from the edition of Blue Peter that it was borrowed for: that of Katarina's death.
This episode sees the return of Jean Marsh, having previously appeared in The Crusade which was also directed by Douglas Camfield. She plays Sara Kingdom in this story. One of her first acts is to gun down Bret Vyon, removing Nicholas Courtney from the action. He too would be brought back by Camfield, in his next directed story, 1968's Web of Fear where he was initially cast as Captain Knight. Events however transpired otherwise and he ends up playing a different role in the series.... Jean Marsh and Nicholas Courtney are reunited in the opening story of Doctor Who's 26th Season, 1989's Battlefield.
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