251 The War Games: Episode Eight

EPISODE: The War Games: Episode Eight
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 251
STORY NUMBER: 050
TRANSMITTED: 07 June 1969
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The War Games

The recovering resistance discuss they're next move. The Security Chief tries to interrogate the Doctor accusing him of being part of a plot to betray them to the Time Lords. Zoe recalls the names of the other resistance leaders and Carstairs' group make plans to contact them. A SIDRAT arrives but they throw a grenade into it. The Security Chief accuses the Doctor of being sent for by the War Chief, but the War Chief interrupts admitting the Doctor is one of his own race and taking him into his personal custody. An upset Security Chief confers with the War Lord. The War Chief and the Doctor discuss their departures from the Time Lords the Doctor accusing the War Chief of leaving to gain power. The War Chief says the aliens want to conquer the galaxy and is using the War Games as an audition for human troops for their armies. The Mexican resistance group lead by Arturo Villa arrive at the château. Carstairs absent, Jamie speaks with Villa, supported by Zoe and brings them onside. The Doctor is interrogated by the War Chief, but the Security Chief. The War Chief says the Doctor will help them destroy the resistance and the War Lord says they will succeed or die. The Resistance plot to ambush a SIDRAT at the American Barn. Resistance groups attack the communication units destroying them. The Security Chief dispatches guards & technicians to the damaged sites emptying guards from the HQ. The War Lord considers using a neutron bomb against the resistance. The Doctor send the Resistance a SIDRAT and asks the leaders to travel to the headquarters in it. They arrive at the alien HQ and are captured by the guards, betrayed by the Doctor!

Coerced by the War Chief there's a real feeling at the end of this episode that the Doctor has betrayed the resistance. The episode rolls along at a lively paste liberally interspersed with brief action sequences.

What this episode is famed for is that for the very first time the Doctor's race are named: they are the Time Lords. We've known for years that he fled their society though I think this is the first time he's been accused of actually having stolen his Tardis. Five and a half years into the show and we finally find out the name of his people, but it'll be a few more years before we find out the name of his home planet. We'll see it earlier than that though, quite soon in the future in fact.

This season, the sixth, had not gone well for the script department. From taking an episode from The Dominators and adding one to The Mind Robber, stretching the Invasion, major rewrites on Seeds of Death, a back up script being pressed into use and that writer immediately being commissioned for another things hadn't gone well. At least three scripts had been abandoned this season already. The plan was to conclude with a six part Malcolm Hulke script and a 4 part Derrick Sherwin at the end of which the Doctor would regenerate. Somewhere along the line they both fell through. What I suspect happened is Sherwin ran out of time to write when he found himself doing Peter Bryant's job when Bryant was taken ill. Terrance Dicks, Script editor, is told they now need a ten parter so he and Malcolm Hulke sit down, take elements from Hulke's script and build a larger tale around it.

This is what Season 6 might have looked like, given what we know about the intended stories, if things had gone to plan vs what actually happened:

Intended			Actual
Story	Author	Episodes	Story	Author	Episodes
The Dominators	Mervyn Haysman & Henry Lincoln	6	The Dominators	Mervyn Haysman & Henry Lincoln	5
The Mind Robber	Peter Ling	4	The Mind Robber	Peter Ling	5
The Invasion	Derrick Sherwin	6	The Invasion	Derrick Sherwin	8
The Dreamspinner	Paul Wheeler	6	The Krotons	Robert Holmes	4
The Lords of the Red Planet	Brian Hayles	6	The Seeds of Death	Brian Hayles	6
The Prison In Space	Dick Sharples	6	The Space Pirates	Robert Holmes	6
The Impersonators	Malcolm Hulke	6	The War Games	Terrance Dicks & Malcolm Hulke	10
AAA	Derrick Sherwin	4

There is considerable evidence that Terrance Dicks learnt much from the experience of script editing season 6. Although he frequently mentions scripts as being a problem, there is no evidence of a crisis of this magnitude occurring again until after Terrance Dicks leaves his post in five years time. Indeed Barry Letts, producer for most of that period, talks about how they would try and be ahead of the game working on the next season's scripts.

250 The War Games: Episode Seven

EPISODE: The War Games: Episode Seven
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 250
STORY NUMBER: 050
TRANSMITTED: 31 May 1969
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The War Games

The Doctor emerges from the Capsule surrendering, but then throws a smoke bomb, releases the capsule & it's dimensions and returns to the Capsule. Using the stolen control keys he dematerialises the capsule. The War Chief attempts to track the capsule, which he terms a SIDRAT when an alarm sounds informing them of the War Lord's arrival. The War Lord questions the Security Chief on the difficulty while the War Lord admits that's the resistance stole the processing machine. The Doctor, Jamie & Carstairs arrive in the Roman Zone where they were attacked and flee into the time zone barrier. The Security Chief wants to send guards, but the War Chief objects. They argue over the Doctor and his companions with the Security Chief accusing him of plotting to betray them. The War Lord tells them to stop bickering. The Doctor and friends walk into the 1917 zone where they are sighted by sentries which is reported to General Smythe who has a nearby machine gun emplacement fire on them. They are captured by troops and taken to the General's HQ where he sends the Doctor to a firing squad. The War Chief is angry with him and wants to know where the machine has gone. They are rescued by Zoe and the resistance. General Smythe attempts to flee but is killed. The Doctor gains access to the controls for the Zone. The War Lord orders the local Soldiers to attack the château. Using the control system the Doctor places a time zone barrier around the château. The War Lord berates both his underlings and takes personal charge. Using the captured processing machine the Doctor successfully deprograms a captive prisoner, Du Pont. A SIDRAT materialises in Smythe's room. Guards exit shooting some of the resistance and seizing the Doctor and the machine before dematerialising.

This is the Two Hundred and Fiftieth episode of Doctor Who ! I suppose it's a problem stringing a story out to ten episodes and have your villains always winning but right up until the end of this episode the aliens are looking a pretty incompetent bunch with their two leaders bickering and at each others throats. Their superior steps in and suddenly everything goes swimmingly. The Doctor is captured and the machine retrieved.

A couple of familiar faces here: The War Lord is Philip Madoc, recently of David Maloney's The Krotons, here playing a truly sinister villain. He's remembered for Doctor Solon in The Brain of Morbius but I think the War Lord is probably his best role. The reprogrammed soldier Du Pont is Peter Craze, formerly of The Space Museum (I know you've tried your best to forget it) and brother of ex companion Michael Craze (Able Seaman Ben Jackson).

249 The War Games: Episode Six

EPISODE: The War Games: Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 249
STORY NUMBER: 050
TRANSMITTED: 24 May 1969
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The War Games

The Doctor, Zoe & Carstairs escape from the landing bay. The Security Chief is suspicious as to how The Doctor got to their planet and thinks he may have been brought there by the War Chief who he thinks has contacted his people. The Doctor gains access to the room the scientist is holding the resistance in using the sonic screwdriver. Jamie's examination reveals he was never processed and he is taken to the Security Chief. The War Chief arrives and finds out why Jamie has been selected. They overpower the guards. Von Weich tries to convince Private Moor, who is guarding him in the barn, to release him. The Security Chief interrogates Jamie and discovers they arrived by accident. The War Chief interrupts. They revive the resistance and escape. Zoe has memorised the members of resistance she saw. Moor unties Von Weich. The War Chief finds the Doctor's escape route disproving the Security Chief's theory that they used a space/time machine. Jamie is freed and the party, now in disguise, makes it's way to the Landing Bay. The Doctor sets the travel machine to take the resistance & Zoe to the American Civil War zone. The Doctor lets the guards into the landing bay while they hide then escape. The travel capsule arrives in the American Civil War zone where Russel struggles with Moor, now controlled by Von Weich, knocking him out. Von Weich threatens Russel, but is killed by a recovered Moore. The Doctor, Jamie & Carstairs steal the deprocessing machine but are seen by the Scientist. They escape past guards in the landing bay to a travel capsule, but it is immobilised and then, at the War Chief's instigation, the walls start to close in on them....

Lots of bickering between the Security Chief and the War Chief this episode with the former taking every opportunity to accuse the later of helping the resistance who he seems certain are using space/time technology. That got a little grating after a bit but apart from this it's business as usual. Somehow the lack of the authentic looking World War One setting detracts from the story though. We've been running round the alien base for two episodes now and it all looks very similar.

The only new actor this week is David Troughton, playing Private Moor. Having been a guard extra in Enemy of the World he here has a early television speaking role before returning as the guest star as King Peladon in The Curse of Peladon.

248 The War Games: Episode Five

EPISODE: The War Games: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 248
STORY NUMBER: 050
TRANSMITTED: 17 May 1969
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The War Games

The Scientist interrupts Carstairs: he pulls the trigger on his gun but finds it empty. Zoe is taken away. In the barn the resistance demand to know where the tunnel is the soldiers are coming out. Jamie explains the soldiers were brought in a machine but isn't believed. One of the resistance tried to shoot Von Weich but is stopped by Harper. Von Weich reaches for the communicator but Jamie stops him showing it to the resistance. The Security Chief interrogates Zoe, not believing she's from the 21st century. She is shown pictures of resistance leaders but doesn't recognise them. The Doctor interrupts the scientist's work on Carstairs, freeing him. They overpower the Scientist and escape. The Security chief tells the War chief that he deduces that Zoe is part of an independent resistance group originating from the 1917 zone. The War Chief is told of the emergency signal Von Weich started to send from the American Civil War Zone. Carstairs and the Doctor free Zoe. They make their way to the landing bay. A capsule materialises in the barn and guards emerge killing Harper but are quickly overcome. The Security Chief is wondering how the War Chief recognised the intruders. The security chief discovers that Zoe has escaped. Jennifer leaves with the resistance to tend to their wounded but Jamie & the leader enter the capsule and are on board when it dematerialises. The Security Chief finds the overpowered scientist. The Security Chief suggests that since Zoe claimed to travel in time perhaps the War Chief is a traitor to them as well as his own people. Hiding in the landing bay, the Doctor, Zoe & Carstairs hear an alarm sound: guards fill the room as a capsule materialises and Jamie & the resistance are shot down.

Lots of information for us in this episode: The War Chief isn't from the same race as the rest of the aliens but he's brought them technology that has made all this possible and is a traitor to his own people. He knows who the Doctor is so we can assume they are renegades from the same race. The War Chief is in charge of the operation but over him is the as yet unseen War Lord who nobody seems particularly keen to get involved in proceedings.

Jamie drops a useful piece of information to those of us watching at home: the travel capsules are green! If you want to see what other elements of the production look like in colour then look at the photo gallery on disc 3 of the Doctor Who: The War Games DVD as there's a few superb colour photos there particularly of the alien base.

More new cast: Spencer, who I presume is the soldier who wants to kill Von Weich, is played by Michael Lynch who'll be back as a Thal politician in David Maloney's 1975 story Genesis of the Daleks. Graham Weston plays Russell, the resistance leader from the Boer War: he's back as De Haan in Planet of Evil. Charles Pemberton was a Cyberman in The Tomb of the Cybermen and is an Alien Technician here. On début in this episode is James Bree as the Security Chief who'll be back as Nefred in Full Circle and the Keeper of the Matrix in the final 2 episodes of The Trial of a Timelord.

247 The War Games: Episode Four

EPISODE: The War Games: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 247
STORY NUMBER: 050
TRANSMITTED: 10 May 1969
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The War Games

Doctor & Zoe find themselves inside a larger area inside the box, like the Tardis. Inside are groups of soldiers in the uniforms of different times and armies. The ship lands and the Romans leave. Jamie and Jennifer are captured by the American forces. They are freed by Southerners but then imprisoned on the orders of their officer: Von Weich from the 1917 zone. The War Chief and his scientist talk about programming the soldiers when Von Weich reports on Jamie & Jennifer's capture. The travel capsule returns to it's base. The Doctor & Zoe disguise themselves and explore. Jamie & Jennifer are rescued by a soldier who has broken his conditioning and can't be hypnotised but he is captured in the escape. The Doctor & Zoe stumble into a lecture the scientist is giving explaining about taking the soldiers from Earth, processing them to convince them they're still on Earth. Some have broken the conditioning and formed a resistance. He brings in a captive who has broken his conditioning: Lt Carstairs! He reconditions Carstairs to make him obedient, which makes him unable to recognise his advanced surroundings. Carstairs accuses the Doctor & Jamie of being spies, recalling the court martial. The Doctor suggest that Carstairs being completely deprocessed before being reconditioned. Jamie & Jennifer are recaptures and returned to the barn, reunited with their saviour from the resistance. The resistance attacks, freeing them and capturing Von Weich. The War Chief and his guards arrive at the lecture and recognises the Doctor. An alert is sounded and as they flee Carstairs escapes, taking Zoe prisoner because he believes her a spy and draws his gun on her to shoot her....

My opinions on the War Games went up when I saw it on DVD but now I'm watching it episodically it's absolutely cracking. Loving it to bits. A tinsy bit of time wasting here: Jamie & Jennifer escape, get split up, Jamie gets in a fight, Jennifer gets captured, Jamie frees her, they both get captured and taken to the barn where they started from, but it's minor and at the same time the Doctor's part of the story is moving on as they discover the conditioning of the soldiers and confirm they're not on Earth. The Doctor almost, but not quite, says that he thinks his people are responsible in this episode. The look of shock on his face, and the War Chief's as they recognise each other is superb.

Joining us this episode are a few new faces: One of the American Soldiers, Leroy, is a young Leslie Schofield. He'll be back as Calib in The Face of Evil. He's in Star Wars as Chief Bast the Imperial Officer that recommends the Death Star is evacuated, Blake's 7's second episode as the sadistic sub commander Raiker, has had stints in Coronation Street & Eastenders and loads of other roles. He's a very recognisable face to anyone who's seen any TV in the last 40 years. Rudolph Walker, playing Harper, was also in East Enders but is best known for his role in the controversial ITV sit com Love Your Neighbour. Vernon Dobtcheff makes his only Who appearance in this story. You'll have seen him as one of the scientists being blown up near the start of The Spy Who Loved Me.

246 The War Games: Episode Three

EPISODE: The War Games: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 246
STORY NUMBER: 050
TRANSMITTED: 03 May 1969
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The War Games

They restart the ambulance and reverse into the mist, returning to 1917. The Doctor works out that the time zones must fit together so they visit the château to see if Smythe has a map showing them all. They blow Smythe's safe open using the explosives from a hand grenade finding a map with a blank space in the middle. They drive towards it but are apprehended by German troops. The Doctor is interrogated by a German officer Lt Lucke The Doctor demonstrates he's from the future by taking his revolver apart with the sonic screwdriver. His superior, Von Weich, arrives and placing his monocle in his eye convinces Lucke that they are spies. Von Weich reports to his control via video communicator he has captured the time travellers. The Doctor pulls the trick with the sonic screwdriver again allowing Jamie to overpower the Lt and for them to escape. In the control are the War Chief arrives and orders the travellers captured and interrogated. The ambulance escapes to the American Civil War Zone. Carstairs is captured by American Soldiers. Seeking shelter in a barn Lady Jennifer and the Tardis crew witness the arrival of a travel capsule with streams of soldiers coming out. The Doctor & Zoe go inside to investigate and are trapped inside when it leaves.

Another cracker this week. The Doctor looks genuinely shocked when he hears the Tardis noise in the barn again making you think it might be his people who are responsible. Jamie's joke that the Doctor might pick the lock with a tuning fork is a reference to The Space Pirates where he does just that. There's a couple of other nods to past stories too: The sonic screwdriver's back, the Doctor is driving again (The Invasion) and uses a John Smith alias (Wheel in Space). There's a cracking piece of special effects in this episode too: as the capsule dematerialises Jamie runs towards it and through the space where it just stood. Looks fabulous.

Playing Lt Lucke is Gregg Palmer who we previously saw as Cybermen Gern and Shav in The Tenth Planet. His superior Von Weich is David Garfield who'll be back in The Face of Evil. But by far the most hauntingly familiar face here, at least to Children of my generation, is War Chief Edward Brayshaw, who previously played Léon Colbert in The Reign of Terror. I will now bring the entire edifice of this story crashing down by reminding you that he plays Mister Meeker in Rentaghost. And if you think a bit of his costume looks familiar then you're right: The War Lord wears the necklace that previous adorned Zephon in The Dalek Masterplan. There, can cross that reminder off my list,it's been there about five months!

245 The War Games: Episode Two

EPISODE: The War Games: Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 245
STORY NUMBER: 050
TRANSMITTED: 26 April 1969
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The War Games

One of the firing squad is hot by a sniper allowing Zoe to rescue the Doctor. Smythe reports he is leaving for the conference to his superiors as a Tardis noise is heard and a black box materialises. Ransom bursts in but Smythe convince him he's seen nothing and has been called to a meeting then enters the box and dematerialises. Jamie meets a Redcoat solider in the cells who thinks it's 1745. He remembers fighting in the highlands, then there being a mist and then being in the First World War. The Doctor pose as an Examiner from the War Office with Zoe as his secretary. Ransom, Carstairs and Buckingham search for the escaped prisoners. Jennifer is starting to doubt what happened during the court marshall and is remembering a mist, which Carstairs blames on gas. Jamie and the Redcoat stage an escape but the Redcoat is killed, Jamie is recaptured and taken to the Examiner. Zoe knocks the commandant of the prison out and they make to leave but are cornered by Ransom. Jennifer is still doubtful of the trial when Ransom returns with his prisoners. Carstairs makes known his objections to the court martial, but Ransom still believes it was fair. Jamie tells the others about the Redcoat and Zoe about the communications device. The Doctor wonders what they are doing in that time period where they don't belong. Carstairs talks with the prisoners and takes them to the General's room to see the screen for himself. The Doctor finds the screen but neither Jennifer or Carstairs can see the screen till the Doctor gets them to concentrate. In a control room elsewhere Smythe watches them. The Doctor and his friends escape with Jennifer & Carstairs in the ambulance. Smythe returns and orders the ambulance found and shelled, convincing Ransom over his objections of attacking an ambulance containing women. The ambulance drives into mist which obscures their view. Jennifer is overcome by an urge not to go on. When the mist clears they find themselves on a peaceful dirt track near a river. Climbing a hill to get a better view they find a Roman Legion charging towards them!

Oh that was top, top stuff, one of the very best Troughton episodes. The lead actor gets a starring moment commandeering the staff car and gaining entry to the prison as an Examiner from the War Office without any psychic paper just using the force of his personality. Wonderful. Then you get the deepening mystery of what is actually going on. The Tardis noise and materialisation of the box genuinely make you think that perhaps maybe the Doctor's own people are involved. He's said very little about them before now and maybe the reason he ran away is to do with repulsion at their activities. By the end of the episode we know that there are at least three different conflicts connected to each other here: the First World War, the Highland conflict of 1745 and something involving Romans. But how is it possible to move between them as we're seeing here?

We need to look at the cast for the earlier episodes of this story, and due to the length of this story we'll need to keep coming back as more cast members show up. Lt Carstairs is played by David Savile who'll be back as Winser in The Claws of Axos, and Colonel Charles Crichton in The Five Doctors. He's with us for the duration of the story. Lady Jennifer Buckingham is the one Doctor Who appearance for Jane Sherwin, the wife of producer Derrick. Hubert Rees, who we've already seen as the Chief Engineer in Fury from the Deep, plays Captain Ransom here, and returns as John Stevenson in The Seeds of Doom. He's another Camfield favourite appearing in many of Douglas Camfield's non Doctor Who productions. The Redcoat is Tony McEwan who's also Baldwin in Planet of Evil. Richard Steele is Gorton, the prison Commandant and he'll be back as Sergeant Hart in Doctor Who and the Silurians, and a Guard in The Mark of the Rani, while the king of the background characters, Pat Gorman, pops up as a Military Policeman.

244 The War Games: Episode One

EPISODE: The War Games: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 244
STORY NUMBER: 050
TRANSMITTED: 19 April 1969
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The War Games

Not to be confused with The 1983 Film or the Space 1999 episode or even the banned banned BBC film The War Game. And many others.......

The Tardis materialises in a World War 1 No Man's Land. Sheltering from shelling the Doctor, Jamie & Zoe are picked up by an ambulance driven by Lady Jennifer Buckingham. They are quickly captured by German Soldiers but liberated by Lt Carstairs and his men who escort them back to a command post on the front line. Major Barrington send the Tardis crew to General Smythe. Lady Jennifer and Carstairs confess to each other that they're having problems with remembering things. Smythe uses a hidden communicator device with a screen to request reinforcements. While searching for him Major Ransom discovers that Smythe is not in his room but when Smythe walks in from his quarters he puts his glasses on and convinces Ransom that he was there. Later in a break in the tribunal he uses the same technique to convince Ransom & Barrington that the Doctor & friends are guilty of spying. Suspecting Jamie of desertion he is sent to a military barracks, while Jamie is remanded into Lady Jennifer's custody before transport to prison. The Doctor is sentenced to death by firing squad. When taken to prison he questions the Sergeant Major and discovers gaps in his memory. Zoe discovers Smythe's communication device while stealing the keys to the Doctor's cell but when she frees him they are both intermediately recaptured. The Doctor is taken to the firing squad, tied up and shots ring out....

Welcome to the fiftieth Doctor Who story which is also the last and longest second Doctor story. World War One is an easy location to do and as with most things involving a setting prior to the present day the BBC does it very well. Unfortunately anything World War One now makes you think Blackadder 4 as Liz, who saw the start of this story with me, pointed out as they reached the trenches. That view was confirmed the moment that Major Barrington (Terence Bayler) appeared on the screen because he looks not dissimilar to Rowan Atkinson! It's the holes in the World War One scenario that are the really interesting parts to the episode: What's the communication device in Smythe's room? Who's he talking to? How's he persuading people that what he says is right? The closest to this episode I can think of is The Time Meddler where we're asking what's the Monk doing with a wrist watch & binoculars.

Wipes the floor with any episode of the Space Pirates this does! You know the Space Pirates finished off the Lost in Time DVD set, Doctor Who's first 3 disc DVD? The War Games is the second 3 disc set.

The film recordings of the episodes that make up this story was originally sourced from two locations: Episodes 2, 5, 8 & 9 were present in the BBC Film & Video Library in 1978 when Ian Levine first visited. All ten episodes were found as negatives at the BFI, who returned them to the BBC. It was believed that the BFI returned their original negatives but when the BBC's copies were later damaged, leading to the odd patterns seen on certain episodes during the video release, and enquiries made of the BFI it was discovered that the BFI had returned copies of their negatives. New superior prints were then struck from the BFI's negatives giving a superb quality of picture used for the basis of the DVD release.

All the location filing for this story was conducted in Sussex around the Eastbourne area. Sheepcoat Rubbish tip, recently home to the film production Oh What A Lovely War, forms the majority of the First World War locations with Birling Manor Farm providing the building exteriors. Doctor Who: The War Games DVD has a Now & Then film showing the locations as they appear in the story and as they do now. There's also some excellent contemporary photos of the location in the DVD's photo gallery.

243 The Space Pirates: Episode Six

EPISODE: The Space Pirates: Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 243
STORY NUMBER: 049
TRANSMITTED: 12 April 1969
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Michael Hart
SCRIPT EDITOR: Derrick Sherwin
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Space Pirates

We start Doctor Who's final missing episode on Wokingham station finally sat on the South West Train that will take me to Richmond.

Jamie & Zoe escape their guards and find the Doctor. Milo Clancy and Dom Issigri are trapped on Clancy's ship which is out of their control and a diminishing oxygen supply. Caven has Dervish booby trap the Issigri base by setting demolition charges in the atomic fuel store before they leave. The Doctor reactivates the Oxygen supply on Clancy's ship and instructs Clancy in how to disconnect the remote control. Reaching a safe distance the pirates send the signal to detonate the explosives but the Doctor has successfully removed the detonator preventing an explosion. Major Warne in a Minnow tracks the pirates Beta Dart and destroys it. Madeline is taken to Earth to stand trial in her part in proceedings while Milo Clancy offers to take the Doctor, Jamie & Zoe to Lobos to retrieve the orbiting space station fragment containing the Tardis.

So the Tardis crew finally spend a whole episode interacting with the rest of the cast.... and because of the requirements of location filming for the War Games the regulars all the scenes involving The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe had to be pre filmed. I hold my head in my hands and weep. If they had to be off somewhere else filming for the next story why not schedule it for an episode, like virtually any of the others but especially 1 or 2, where they have minimal interaction with the rest of the cast and are hardly in it? Madness. But at least at the end there's a little tension with the countdown to the explosives going off. I will not be remembering the Space Pirates with fondness for anything in the program itself.

I've gone away and thought about this: the only member of the cast that the Tardis crew interact with in this episode is Madeline Issigri. Clancy and Dom Issigri are in Clancy's spaceship, the pirates are escaping and Warne & Hermack are pursuing them. The scene at the end could have been accomplished with the Tardis crew on one side of the room and the rest on the other... In fact the Tardis crew never meet Warne & Hermack during the story which is odd given what large roles they play in it.

Instead I choose to celebrate the major milestone that this episode represents: it's the last episode that is presently missing from the BBC archives. From this point onwards all episodes of Doctor Who broadcast by the BBC exist. The question now turns from "does this episode exist?" to "what format does the episode exit in?" We'll pick this subject up in The Silurians in two weeks time. So I say goodbye to my Missing Episodes CDs that I sourced the soundtracks for the these missing episodes from and goodbye to the MP3 player I've listened to them on, mostly on buses or trains.

Since this is the last missing episode I thought we should record which episodes are still missing from the BBC archives:

Season 1: 1963-4

Marco Polo: All 7 episodes
Reign of Terror: Episodes 4 & 5 of 6

Season 2: 1964-5

The Crusade: Episodes 2 & 4 of 4

Season 3: 1965-6

Galaxy 4: 1, 2 & 4 of 4
Mission to the Unknown: Only episode
The Myth Makers: All 4 episodes
The Dalek Masterplan: Episodes 1, 3 & 4, 6-9 and 11 & 12 of 12
The Massacre: All 4 episodes
The Celestial Toymaker: Episodes 1-3 of 4
The Savages: All 4 episodes

Season 4: 1966-7

The Smugglers: All 4 episodes
The Tenth Planet: Episode 4 of 4
Power of the Daleks: All 6 episodes
The Highlanders: All 4 episodes
The Underwater Menace: Episodes 1 & 4 of 4
The Moonbase: Episodes 1 & 3 of 4
The Macra Terror: All 4 episodes
The Faceless Ones: Episodes 2 & 4-6 of 6
Evil of the Daleks: Episodes 1 & 3-7 of 7

Season 5: 1967-8

The Abominable Snowmen: Episodes 1 & 3-6 of 6
The Ice Warriors: Episodes 2 & 3 of 6
The Enemy of the World: Episodes 1, 2 & 4-6 of 6
The Web of Fear: Episodes 2-6 of 6
Fury from the Deep: All 6 episodes
The Wheel in Space: Episodes 1, 2, 4 & 5 of 6

Season 6: 1968-9

The Invasion: Episodes 1 & 4 of 8
The Space Pirates: Episodes 1 & 3-6 of 6

The Space Pirates was the last Troughton story - bar the Terry Nation Dalek stories - to be novelised by Target books. It was also the last Doctor Who novelization by Terrance Dicks.... and in two stories time I'll tell you about his first. A soundtrack CD with narrations by Fraser Hines was issued in 2003.

242 The Space Pirates: Episode Five

EPISODE: The Space Pirates: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 242
STORY NUMBER: 049
TRANSMITTED: 05 April 1969
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Michael Hart
SCRIPT EDITOR: Derrick Sherwin
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Space Pirates

Right, I'm now at Reading boarding a rail replacement bus. Ah the joys of bank holiday rail travel.

The Doctor, his friends and Clancy are flung into an old fashioned study by Caven. Inside they find Dom Issigri, Madeline's Father who Caven has been holding prisoner. Caven sabotages Clancy's ship and fits it with a remote control device. Madeline Issigri, finding that Caven intends to kill the prisoners, calls General Hermack for help with dealing with the pirates, but Caven coerces her into keeping quiet when he reveals he has her Father. The Doctor, Clancy & Dom Issigri and Jamie & Zoe escape, but the Doctor is separated from his friends and is caught in the blast as Clancy takes off.

Episode 1: Tardis crew turn up at the end.
Episode 2: Stuck in the space station segment
Episode 3: Stuck in Milo's ship
Episode 4: Stuck in a cell, then escape
Episode 5: Stuck in a study,

Having spent 5 weeks of keeping the Tardis crew separate from the most of the rest of the cast you'll be holding your head in your hands when you hear what happens in the next episode...

Yes the entries for this story have been brief. I'm struggling to find things to say about it, it just doesn't work.

241 The Space Pirates: Episode Four

EPISODE: The Space Pirates: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 241
STORY NUMBER: 049
TRANSMITTED: 29 March 1969
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Michael Hart
SCRIPT EDITOR: Derrick Sherwin
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Space Pirates

Right my packed Train has just pulled out of Didcot Parkway. I fell over getting on the train at Swindon and had to turf someone out the disabled seating. Time for Space Pirates 4

The Tardis crew find the injured Lt Zorba, seized from station Alpha 4. General Hermack retrieves Major Warne and they pursue a Beta Dart used by the pirates. The Doctor opens the audio lock on the door of the cell they fell into. They find Clancy and escape to Madeline Issigri's office telling her of the pirates on Ta but when Caven enters killing Sorba they realise she's in league with them.

Finally an episode that's a bit more like what it should be. Yes they're in a cell for much of the episode but they're trying to escape and then do something when they do get out.

I've recognised another actor in the series! Jack May, playing General Hermack is a noted voice actor and, aside from being the voice of Igor in Count Duckula, appeared in one of my favourite radio series: He's Theoden in the acclaimed Radio 4 adaptation of The Lord of the Rings which also features Gerard Murphy (Richard in Silver Nemesis) as the Narator, Bill Nighy (the guide in Vincent & The Doctor) as Sam, Peter Howell (The Investigator in the Mutants) as Saruman and Stephen Thorne (Azal in the Daemons, Omega in the Three Doctors and an Eldred in Hand of Fear) as Treebeard. It's fab, buy the CDs.

240 The Space Pirates: Episode Three

EPISODE: The Space Pirates: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 240
STORY NUMBER: 049
TRANSMITTED: 22 March 1969
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Michael Hart
SCRIPT EDITOR: Derrick Sherwin
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Space Pirates

As you'll know I try to watch/listen to an episode of Who every day, and then write about it. Sometimes I'll do more than one and that's why at time of writing, I'm 50 episodes in front (Enemy of the World 4 went up today) Having watched Space Pirates 2 at the weekend and thoroughly despised the experience, a train journey on a Bank Holiday Monday has given me the opportunity to deal with the remaining four episode of this story and the last four missing episodes. We start with Philip on Swindon station and Jamie lying on the floor.....

Clancy has just stunned Jamie: he rescues them from the station segment, deploying copper needles which immobilise Major Warne's ship. Zoe works out where the space pirates went: The planet Ta where Clancy wishes to hide under the nose of Madeline Issigri. Pirate leader Craven orders his subordinate Dervish to route the space station segments to Lobos, where Clancy's headquarters is located, to throw suspicion on him. Once on Ta The Doctor, Jamie & Zoe leave the ship but are chased by pirate guards and end up falling down a chasm.

Oooooh Clancy is annoying, That accent is awful & he's heavily featured in this episode which combined with the rather rough quality of the audio recordings it makes it a job to follow what's going on. Thankfully I've found the scripts online!

Not a lot of the cast of this story have Who form. Donald Gee playing Major Warne in this Troughton's penultimate story later returns as Eckersley in The Monster of Peladon which is Pertwee's penultimate story. By far the most recognisable face here is George Layton (2nd March 1943) playing Technician Penn. Famed for his role as medical student Paul Collier in Doctor in the House he's got an extensive TV CV both writing and performing. He memorably appears as Australian Ray Stackpole in two episodes of the Sweeney.

239 The Space Pirates: Episode Two

EPISODE: The Space Pirates: Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 239
STORY NUMBER: 049
TRANSMITTED: 15 March 1969
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Michael Hart
SCRIPT EDITOR: Derrick Sherwin
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Lost In Time

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are trapped in their section of the space station running out of air. The V-Ship encounters Milo Clancy in his ship the Liz-79. General Hermack dispatches Major Warne in a minnow ship to follow him but proceeds himself to Ta, where he speaks to Madeleine Issigri, the head of the Issigri Mining Corporation formed by her father and Clancy. Clancy finds the space station segment and enters it, shooting Jamie.

I know what we'll do: after having the Tardis crew absent for most of the first episode, lets lock them in a room for the second separate from the rest of the story and what little action there is. The space ship crew are as wooden as my dining room table and the "eccentric" Millo Clancy is nothing but an annoying imitation of a wild west prospector. What a boring, awful, episode. I'll be honest: Given the opportunity to have a missing episode of any other story back in return for this I'd happily sling this into the incinerator. It's a shame it exists and none of Power of the Daleks or Fury from the Deep does.

Me and Space Pirates 2 have history. It was on the Troughton Years VHS and I hated it then. Why was this on the tape and not Web of Fear 1? It has been speculated that it owes it's early release on video to being the only surviving episode of the first Doctor Who story that John Nathan Turner worked on as a floor assistant. Eleven years later JNT would become Doctor Who's producer and in 1991 he was helping BBC Video with their Doctor Who range and was responsible for producing the Years tapes of orphaned episodes from missing stories.

And speaking of orphaned episode, this is the last one. So we bid farewell to the mighty Doctor Who - Lost In Time DVD which contains the most recent release of Space Pirates 2 as well as 17 other orphaned episode, those from the stories of which 50% or less exists. Four stories which have more than 50% of their episodes existing but are still missing episodes also exist. The Invasion is already on DVD and since we covered it Reign of Terror has had a 2012 release announced. We don't yet know when The Tenth Planet or The Ice Warriors will be released.

The full list of surviving episodes from stories that aren't 100% complete is:

The Reign of Terror: 1, 2, 3 & 6
The Crusade: 1 & 3
The Daleks’ Master Plan: 2, 5 & 10
The Celestial Toymaker: 4
The Tenth Planet: 1, 2 & 3
The Underwater Menace: 3
The Moonbase:2 & 4
The Faceless Ones: 1 & 3
The Evil of the Daleks: 2
The Abominable Snowmen: 2
The Ice Warriors: 1, 4, 5 & 6
The Enemy of the World: 3
The Web of Fear: 1
The Wheel in Space:3 & 6
The Invasion: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 & 8
The Space Pirates:2

With that little milestone out the way we'll be counting down the remaining missing episodes: Four, and they're all in this story. From the start of the next story every Doctor Who episode exists. But there's another count running too: there's only fourteen Troughton episodes left for us to enjoy.

238 The Space Pirates: Episode One

EPISODE: The Space Pirates: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 238
STORY NUMBER: 049
TRANSMITTED: 08 March 1969
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Michael Hart
SCRIPT EDITOR: Derrick Sherwin
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Space Pirates

Space Beacons are being destroyed and plundered for the argonite used in their construction. A V-ship from Earth investigates and having narrowly missed the gang of space pirates starts putting teams onto the remaining space beacons in the area. The Tardis arrives on beacon Alpha 4 but so do the pirates who kill the team left there and break the space station up with the Tardis crew trapped in a different section to their ship.

The Space Pirates: Not to be confused with the CBeebies show of the same name or the Doctor Who serial the Pirate Planet. In fact listening to it the thing that came to mind was "Star Trek" with the concept of a patrolling space fleet. However it's virtually impossible for Star Trek to have had an influence on this Doctor Who story as it hadn't yet been shown in the UK. That would soon change so it's not inconceivable that the Doctor Who team may have had a sneak peak at the BBC's new American import.

The noise the pirates use to detonate the explosives sounds very familiar, I'm pretty certain it's the Yeti spheres' beeping communication noise.

A small amount of model footage for this episode exists and can be found on Doctor Who - Lost In Time.

It's a quick return to scripting duties for Robert Holmes here, fresh from his debut show the Krotons. While this serial was in production Terrance Dicks was busy sorting out The Seeds of Death and writing The War Games with Malcolm Hulke so Derrick Sherwin is one last time credited as Script Editor. However he's by this point effectively producing the show due Peter Bryant's ill health. This is the last story for which Bryant will be credited as Producer.

237 The Seeds of Death: Episode Six

EPISODE: The Seeds of Death: Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 237
STORY NUMBER: 048
TRANSMITTED: 01 March 1969
WRITER: Brian Hayles (and Terrance Dicks)
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)

Jamie distracts the Ice Warrior and at the last moment Zoe opens the door to admit the Doctor. They find Weather Control's solar energy room securing themselves inside. The Warrior hunts down the human guards. The Doctor rigs up a solar energy weapon and uses it to kill the Warrior. Miss Kelly duplicates the Ice Warriors homing beam for the satellite. The Doctor works to bypass the weather controls to make it rain. The rocket containing the satellite lifts off. The Doctor T-Mats to the room with his solar energy device to knock out the Martian homing device. He kills the Warrior in the control room and is working on the Martian homing device when Slaar returns destroying his weapon. The Ice Warrior fleet is drawn away by the satellite towards the sun: The Doctor's sabotage was successful. Jamie gets Zoe to T-Mat him to the moon where he and the Doctor distract a Warrior causing Slaar's death before dealing with the final Warrior. As normality is restored The Doctor and friends sneak away to the Tardis

The thing that strikes me about this episode is how much killing the Doctor does. It's rare to see him kill a creature, and when he does it's not usually as up close and personal yet here he personally "shoots" three Ice Warriors with the solar energy weapon. It's positively bloodthirsty compared to how he normally is! Once again I enjoyed this episode as I have done the last three. It's a reminder, almost at it's last breath, that 60s Doctor Who is mainly an episodic beast rather than a series of serials. The first two episodes were very slow, with the main cast separated from the action and were rather poor. The last four are pacey action serials. Here we can credit it to Terrance Dicks taking over writing duties, but for most of the sixties it was down to Doctor Who being recorded an episode a week. This schedule was having an exhausting effect on the actors: we've been turning over at least one companion a year since the start and already this season both Patrick Troughton and Fraser Hines have announced they would be leaving with Troughton very much blaming the production schedule. As we enter the Seventies the production pattern for the show would change and the show would loose the individual feel of each episode.

We do have to note a minor milestone here: Seeds of Death is the last Troughton story to feature a monster protagonist.

The Seeds of Death was the last Ice Warriors story to be novelised, being adapted by Terrance Dicks. Seeds of Death was the fourth Doctor Who story issued on video after Revenge of the Cybermen, an edited down Brain of Morbius and Pyramids of Mars. It was the first six parter, the first black & white story and thus the first Troughton story to be sold on Video. Like all the Doctor Who stories sold in the eighties it was edited into a compilation version and was one of three stories not to get an episodic re-release. The other two were the Time Warrior & Talons of Weng Chiang. It was the second Troughton story to be released on DVD and has recently had a special edition version released as part of Doctor Who Revisitations Volume 2 with Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks.

235 The Seeds of Death: Episode Five

EPISODE: The Seeds of Death: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 236
STORY NUMBER: 048
TRANSMITTED: 22 February 1969
WRITER: Brian Hayles (and Terrance Dicks)
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)

Fewsham attacks the Ice Warrior distracting it long enough for the increased heat to start to have an effect. The warrior attacking Jamie and Miss Kelly is also overcome as the Doctor came round. The Ice Warrior in London reaches the weather control station and destroys the control mechanism. Fewsham returns the others to Earth, saying he'll follow courtesy of a timer mechanism. Slaar reduces the Moonbase temperature and tells Fewsham more Ice Warriors are coming. The Doctor collects a sample of the foam. Miss Kelly finds away to route essential T-Mat functions via satellite. The Doctor discovers the foam absorbs oxygen. Absorb enough Oxygen and Earth's atmosphere would become similar to Mars. He finds the fungus foam can be destroyed by water. Jamie & Zoe go to the weather bureau to pass the Doctor's instructions for rain on to them. They find bodies, the wrecked controls and the Ice Warrior. The Grand Marshall reports the Martian fleet is nearing the moon. Fewsham broadcasts the lunar control room to Earth but is killed by the Warriors who sever the link. The Doctor comes up with a plan to deceive the Martians with a false homing signal. Finding out that Jamie and Zoe have gone to the Weather Control where the Warrior was sighted the Doctor races there, but finds the door locked as he is overcome by foam ..........

Hmmmm. Zoe says that Phipps was killed in the last episode - I missed that. Another decent pacey adventuring episode. A few things caught my eye in this episode. Has the Ice Warrior entering weather control got proper mouth make up on? I've looked at the Ice Warrior mouth make up ever since while watching Monster of Peladon years one caught my eye as apparently having a green piece of cardboard across it's mouth. Radnor's boss shows up in this episode so we've got three older characters running around in these silly plastic outfits. That reminded me of the how the actors playing the Sensorites looked and I'm forced to wonder if they're recycled from there.

We looked at the human members of the cast yesterday so today we'll look at the Martians. Alan Bennion makes his Who debut this story as the "Ice Lord" Slaar. He'll be back every time the show needs an Ice Lord appearing as Izlyr in The Curse of Peladon and Azaxyr in The Monster of Peladon. Two of the Ice Warriors, Tony Harwood & Sonny Caldinez, were in the previous eponymous Ice Warriors story. Caldinez, Turoc in the Ice Warriors, had previously been Kemel in Evil of the Daleks will return as Ssorg in Curse of Peladon and Sskel in Monster of Peladon. Harwood, Rintan in the Ice Warriors, was a Cyberman in Tomb of the Cybermen and a Yeti in the Abominable Snowman. He'll be back as the cameoing Ice Warrior in the War Games and Flynn in The Ambassadors of Death (Director: Michael Fergusson). The third Ice Warrior actor, Steven Peters, billed as Alien in the first episode to disguise which monsters were in the story. He's the Ice Warrior seen in the location sequences and will return as a Pirate Guard in The Space Pirates, and as both astronaut Lefee and his alien substitute in The Ambassadors of Death (see above). Meanwhile the Grand Marshall is Graham Leamam who has already been the Controller in The Macra Terror & Price in Fury from the Deep and will return as Time Lords, possibly the same Time Lord in Colony in Space & The Three Doctors.

This episode exists as a high quality 35mm film print that was in the BBC Film & Video library when Ian Levine arrived to buy episodes in 1978.

235 The Seeds of Death: Episode Four

EPISODE: The Seeds of Death: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 235
STORY NUMBER: 048
TRANSMITTED: 15 February 1969
WRITER: Brian Hayles (and Terrance Dicks)
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)

When the seed explodes it produces a gas killing technician Brent. Commander Radnor has the air vented. The Ice Warriors dispatch more seeds to T-Mat centres all over Earth. Outside the London T-Mat control the vented gas settles on the ground and turns to foam. Slaar orders the Doctor t-mated into space but Jamie & Phipps rescue him by opening the back of the T-Mat capsule. Bubbles form in the foam exploding and spreading the foam further. Reports come in of other T-Mat technicians killed, like Brent, by Oxygen starvation. An Ice Warrior T-Mats into the London HQ rampaging through the complex killing several guards. Zoe volunteers to climb through the narrow vent to get to heating controls in Moonbase control. The Ice Warrior continues it's rampage outside T-Mat Control on into the foam. Professor Eldred realises that the Ice Warriors have only had poda sent to currently cold cities. Miss Kelly & Jamie are found in the energy store by an Ice Warrior. Technician Fewsham provides a distraction to allow Zoe to turn up the temperature control but she is caught returning to the vent...

Oooh, the Doctor's unconscious all episode, can you tell that Troughton's on holiday this week? While he's gone we get lots of activity helping to make up for the first few episodes and another outing for the foam machine, this time pumping foam all over the location on Hampstead Heath.

Brent, killed in the opening moments of this episode is played by Ric Felgate who was Roy Stone in The War Machines and returns as Van Lyden in The Ambassadors of Death. All three stories are directed by Michael Ferguson. Two other members of the human playing cast who return to Doctor Who are Ronald Leigh-Hunt who is playing Commander Radnor and will be back as Commander Stevenson in Revenge of the Cybermen and Christopher Coll who is Phipps here and Stubbs in The Mutants. Professor Eldred is played by Philip Ray who was born in 1897 and so is one of the earliest born actors to appear in Doctor Who,

234 The Seeds of Death: Episode Three

EPISODE: The Seeds of Death: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 234
STORY NUMBER: 048
TRANSMITTED: 08 February 1969
WRITER: Brian Hayles (and Terrance Dicks)
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)

Phipps accidentally makes contact with Doctor's rocket. Once the T-Mat is reactivated, the Ice Warriors reveal themselves. The technicians from earth killed and Miss Kelly taken prisoner. The Doctor & Jamie realise from Phipps description that the invaders are Ice Warriors. Phipps reconnects the transmitter to guide them in to land. The Doctor goes to rescue Phipps while Jamie & Zoe refuel the rocket. The Doctor finds Phipps who tells him what has happened and goes to deactivate the T-Mat. Zoe finds the rocket is damaged and can't take off so she and Jamie search for the Doctor. Phipps & The Doctor free Miss Kelly but the Doctor is captured and pleads

Don't kill me, I'm a genius

The Ice Warriors instruct Fewsham to dispatch their cargo to Earth. The Doctor is interrogated by Slaar. The Ice Warriors bring a casket of white seed pods to the T-Mat to be sent to Earth. Jamie & Zoe find Phipps & Miss Kelly. They plan to turn Moonbase's heating up to hinder the Ice Warriors. Fewsham distracts their guard so the Doctor can examine the seed pods. Slaar catches him and gets the Doctor to pick one of the pods up which explodes gassing him. An Ice Warrior find Jamie, Zoe, Miss Kelly & Phipps in the Power Room but they kill it using the solar energy supply. The Martians have the first seed pod T-Mated to T-Mat control in London where it starts to grow...

Ah that's a bit more like it. The Tardis crew are finally in the centre of the action getting to interact with what's left of the moonbase crew and the Martians. Poor Michael Fergusson, who previously directed one of my favourite Hartnell's The War Machines, has been trying his best with clever shots and some decent model work but he's not had anything decent to work with until now. However in this episode he does produce a Doctor Who cliche for the first time that we've seen: The Doctor repetitively runs up and down the same corridor set, but filmed from different angles, to make us think he's running down different corridors. This trick may have been used previously but lost: This is the first time I can recall seeing it.

Part of the reason my opinion has jumped up this episode might be to do with who actually wrote it. Brian Hayles, the credited writer, has a mixed record for the show so in my opinion. We'll ignore the Celestial Toymaker as at least two people rewrote it after he finished it, and the Smugglers is one of my favourite historical stories. The Ice Warriors was a little variable, but the first two episodes of this story were horribly slow. As of this episode Terrance Dicks steps in and redrafts all the remaining episodes. These days a TV script goes through myriad revisions by the writer, a lot easier when they're word processed. Terrance Dicks has said his preferred method for working was to give the author one, maybe two, stabs at the script and then if it wasn't working take away the script and sort it out him self.

Some inspiration for this serial must be drawn from the US Apollo space program which would out a man on the moon during the year that Seeds of Death was transmitted. Lots of elements of the journey to the moon and landing have the hint of a basis in real life. Doctor Who had already been to the Moon in 1967's the Moonbase.

Episode 3 of the Seeds of Death is the only episode of this story that was missing from the BBC Film & Video library in 1978. A copy was recovered from BBC Enterprises, along with duplicate 16mm prints of the rest of the episodes a short while later.

233 The Seeds of Death: Episode Two

EPISODE: The Seeds of Death: Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 233
STORY NUMBER: 048
TRANSMITTED: 01 February 1969
WRITER: Brian Hayles
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)

hahahaha. I pressed the Play All option on the DVD for episode 1, but I've dropped into the Select Episode menu to pick episode two. There's the audio for a trailer for the story playing over the selection screen.

The Ice Warriors force technician Fewsham to fix the damaged emergency T-Mat link. Eldred says he's too old to go up in his rocket so the Doctor, Jamie & Zoe volunteer. The rocket is prepared for launch. The Ice Warriors on the moon hunt the missing technician Phipps. The Ice Warriors tell Fewsham they do not need an army to take Earth and it will be there's for the taking very soon. The rocket launches, but the video communication link cuts out. The Doctor temporarily restores communication before smoke fills the cabin. The emergency T-Mat link is reactivated: Miss Kelly and a technician team use it to go to the moon. Phipps attempts to contact Earth control. Phipps kills an Ice Warrior using solar power but in the process cuts out the homing beam that the Doctor's rocket is homing in on leaving them unable to land....

Another slow episode here. There's more Doctor, but he's separated from the main action for most of the episode. Even when he travels to the moon someone else from Earth gets there first. But the Ice Warriors have more of a screen presence here even if they do look like they're waddling down the corridors of the moonbase. Like the Ice Warriors point of view shots in episode one, there's a couple of nice little touches here. I liked the round monitor screen showing the action as the countdown occurred but I swear at one point there was a QR Code/Data Matrix Code, one of those black & white squares you can read with a mobile, pop up on the screen (thanks to Mohamed Ansar and Tim Walker for reminding me what they were called when I couldn't remember!)

Ooooh! Sticking strictly to the episode count for the original series, we're 1/3 of the way through our journey today. Ish. As we'll see later counting Doctor Who episodes isn't a strictly accurate business. You could easily add 19 onto this number to take into account a longer special and 16 double length episodes and/or subtract 6 episodes because Shada was never transmitted? Not 100% sure how I'm going to do that story but that's a matter for May next year..... But I've got the Video so it'll get looked at......somehow. Do you include the McGann Movie in the original episode count? What about K9 and Company? Can or worms, nearly as bad as UNIT dating, would rather not go there. Anyhow my list says there's 701 original episodes of Doctor Who so we'll stick to that number. For now.........

Episode 2 of the Seeds of Death exists as a high quality fine grain 16mm print. When Seeds of Death was released as a compilation video in the 1980s the jump in quality from episode 1 to 2 was huge and noticed by almost everyone who watched it.

232 The Seeds of Death: Episode One

EPISODE: The Seeds of Death: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 232
STORY NUMBER: 048
TRANSMITTED: 25 January 1969
WRITER: Brian Hayles
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)

Seeds of DEATH, not Seeds of DOOM. That's the one with the plants. Easy mistake to make though.

On Earth in the future all transport is made by T-Mat. Soon after Controller Osgood returns to T-Mat control on Moonbase the base is invaded by an alien force. Osgood sabotages the equipment and is killed. The remaining technicians are set to work repairing it by the aliens. The Doctor and friends arrive in a space museum and are being held as trespassers by Professor Eldred, the owner, when the Commander Radnor from T-Mat control arrives to request a rocket to take a team to the moon. A communication from technician Locke on the moon is received saying they're in trouble and then swiftly cut off. Locke is killed by the alien invaders: The Ice Warriors

I first saw Seeds of Death years ago while I was still at school and thought episode one was as boring as anything. I still don't think it's great: The Doctor's hardly in it and you don't see the monsters till the end. Lovely point of view shots used during the episode to avoid revealing them though. Indeed Steve Peters, playing the Ice Warrior here, was billed as "alien" in that week's Radio Times. Alan Bennion was billed as Slaar, his character's name but is never listed as an Ice Lord, the name that's stuck to the ruling Ice Warriors that we'll see in charge from this story onwards. Is that one of our old friends, the Tenth Planet spacesuits I see hanging in the museum?

Two of the cast have left us already Harry Towb plays Osgood here and returns as McDermott in Terror of the Autons where he suffers one of the series more memorable deaths. Martin Cort previously played a Voord, a Warrior, and Aydan in The Keys of Marinus, and plays Locke here.

The vast majority of this story was sitting in the BBC Film & Video Library during Ian Levine's initial visit in 1978: They held episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 & 6 with just episode 3 missing which BBC Enterprises soon supplied.

231 The Krotons: Episode Four

EPISODE: The Krotons: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 231
STORY NUMBER: 047
TRANSMITTED: 18 January 1969
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who: The Krotons

Thara finds the injured Doctor but is injured helping him to safety. Jamie takes advantage of the situation to escape the confused Krotons before they restore the balance of the Dynotrope. The Doctor finds a leaking crack in the Dynotrope. Finding out Jamie went into the machine they race to the back door to help him escape. Eelek and Selris argue but as they do a Kroton emerges from the machine demanding the Doctor & Zoe. They need them to operate the drive mechanism of the Dynatrope. Eelek says he will find them. The Doctor & Zoe rescue Jamie who the Doctor sends to get Beta to make more acid. Vana sneaks away to warn the Doctor but is captured by Eelek's guards as are the Doctor & Zoe who are taken to the Krotons. The Krotons start the preparations for lift off. Selris dives into the closing door of the Dynatrope to give the Doctor the acid he needs but after doing so he is soon slain by the Krotons. The Krotons need the Doctor and Zoe to replace two of their crew who were exhausted before they crashed. Zoe tips the acid into the tank which the Krotons are connected to which causes the Krotons to dissolve. The Dynotrope starts to melt to as Jamie, Beta, Thara and Vena tip acid on it. The Doctor explains that since the machine was mainly Tellurium it was susceptible to sulphuric acid. The Doctor, Jamie & Zoe make their exit.

Eelek is a nasty piece of work isn't he? He spends the first episode obeying the Krotons: he's floating around in the background of the ceremony, is absent for the second, turns up in the third wanting to attack the Krotons and then is all to willing to surrender the Doctor and Zoe to them as soon as they ask. I like the Krotons as a story, I think it distills one of the essential Doctor Who storylines down quite well: The Doctor arrives on a planet, finds something is wrong (usually caused by a monster) and does something about it. There's nothing wrong with this story that changing some slightly dodgy monster legs wouldn't fix.

Serial WW, the production code assigned to the Krotons was originally intended to be “The Dreamspinner” by Paul Wheeler. When this fell through it was replaced by Dick Sharples' comedic “The Amazons” which was renamed “The Prison In Space” and would have seen the exit of Jamie. Fraser Hinds announced his intention to leave early in the season having been persuaded by his agent that now was the time to go and not to get typecast despite Hinds wanting to stay. When Patrick Troughton decided to leave at the end of the season he spoke to Hinds and persuaded him to stay until he too left. It's possible that Dick Sharples' script Prison in Space may have been re-worked as the Two Ronnies mini serial The Worm That Turned. Both feature strong female lead societies. I know Sharples was a comedy writer by trade but research hasn't been able to tell me if he worked on the Two Ronnies or wrote that segment.

Episode 4 of this story is a 16mm film print sourced from the British Film Institute which was offered film copies of three Patrick Troughton stories when BBC Enterprises were finished with them - they also had the Dominators and the War Games, Patrick Troughton's final serial. As it turns out the BFI were given negatives for these three stories too which proved very useful in the creation of the DVDs.

Novelised by Terrance Dicks, the Krotons was Target Books #99. Dicks, script editor at the time, has been most vocal over the years in his dislike for the monsters in the story! A VHS release of the Krotons was made in 1991. A DVD version is due in 2011.

Twenty Two episodes into season six, we're half way through Troughton's last season, but there's just three stories to go.

230 The Krotons: Episode Three

EPISODE: The Krotons: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 230
STORY NUMBER: 047
TRANSMITTED: 11 January 1969
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who: The Krotons


Definitely German Submarines today. Promise.

The Krotons cut the power to the machine interrogating Jamie. They track the Doctor & Zoe to the Tardis. Eelek, the council deputy, goes to see Beta hoping to recruit him help them fight the Krotons. He tells Beta that the Doctor & Zoe then Jamie have gone into the Krotons' machine. Eelek tells him not to obey council chief Selris but to obey him instead. One of the two Krotons is dispatched from their ship, the Dynotrope, to fetch the Doctor & Zoe. Jamie is interrogated about the Tardis, but it decides that he has no value. Selris tells Thara that the Doctor, Zoe & Jamie have all have gone into machine. Thara tells him Eelek has taken over as council leader and is going to try to overthrow the Krotons. The Kroton explains to Jamie that the Dynotrope needs high brains for it's power transfer. It tells him that they do not die, merely exhaust and revert to their base compounds. The Doctor emerges from the Tardis having analysed the liquid he took from the Krotons ship and deduced that it's based on Tellurium. Outside the Tardis the Doctor is looking for sulphurous rocks when the Kroton finds them demanding that they return to the dynotrope. Back at the Krotons' ship Jamie seizes the Krotons' weapon and attacks the remaining Kroton with it, which causes the other Kroton to loose contact with the Dynatrope which is directing it. Hearing what has happened, the Doctor realises that the Krotons can't see in bright light. Once communication is regained the Krotonm attacks the Tardis with it's gas weapon leaving no trace of the Doctor's ship then returns to the Dynatrope reversing it's course. A short while later the Tardis materialises a short way up a hill. The Doctor says he has set the Hostile Action Displacement System. At the Gond city Eelek plans the Gond's attack on the Krotons. Inside the Dynatrope the Krotons' decide that the high brains must be recaptured before they exhaust time in 3 hours time. The Doctor & Zoe return to the city and learn from Vana and Thara what is happrning. The Gonds start to attack the machine's supports. The Doctor gets Beta to process his collected sulphur using instructions he has left. An alert sounds in the Krotons' ship, the Dynotrope is now out of balance. The Doctor goes to stop the Gonds but their work has undermined the cities foundations which starts to collapse burying the Doctor under rubble.

There's a horrendous continuity mix up in this episode when it appears that Beta is in his lab working on the sulphur and under the city undermining the Dynatrope at the same time, but apart from that it's a nice little episode. The stuff with the Tardis is good causing you for a brief moment to think that the Tardis has actually been destroyed by the Kroton. We get our first proper look at the Krotons in this episode. The bodies and heads look very nice, almost like crystal, and I can live with the tube like arms ending in claws. But the rubber skirt from the waist down just doesn't work and makes them look silly. For many years they were rumoured top be the winner of a Blue Peter Design A Monster competition, which Patrick Troughton helped to judge, but this just isn't true. Nowadays Blue Peter have contributed not just a monster to the series, the Asorbalof in Love & Monsters, but a Tardis console as well in The Doctor's Wife.

This serial introduces us to the acting talents of Philip Madoc, here playing Eelik. He'd already been in the second Doctor Who film as Brockley and one of my earliest Doctor Who memories is of him being exterminated in the shed. After this story he'll be back as two of the most memorable Doctor Who villains. First he's the War Lord in two stories time in The War Games (also directed by David Maloney) and then as Doctor Solon in The Brain of Morbius before appearing as the less villainous Fenner in Power of Kroll. He's been in loads of television including UFO as Straker's ex wife's new partner, Space 1999 as Koenig's predecessor Commander Gorski. I recently saw him in Midsomer Murders playing Barnaby's former (Welsh) DCI in The Axeman Cometh, a barking episode involving a rock group. But not half as barking as Country Matters is! He's got a talent for playing German officers and (here we go) in this role he can be seen in one of the most repeated clips on television. He plays the commanding officer of the U-Boat crew captured by the Walmington-on-Sea home guard in the Dad's Army episode "The Deadly Attachment".

I am making notes, Captain, and your name will go on the list; and when we win the war you will be brought to account.
You can write what you like, You're not going to win the war!
Oh yes we are.
Oh no you're not.
Oh yes we are!
Whistle while you work, Hitler is a twerp, he's half-barmy, so's his army, whistle while you work!
Your name will also go on the list! What is it?
Don't tell him Pike!

And by an odd coincidence the subject of Philip Madoc popped up in my Twitter feed last night!

229 The Krotons: Episode Two

EPISODE: The Krotons: Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 229
STORY NUMBER: 047
TRANSMITTED: 04 January 1969
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who: The Krotons

The Doctor realises the eye is working on pattern recognition fixed on his face. When one of the Gonds attacks the machine and is gassed, the Doctor realises that the "stupid machine mistook him for me". The Gongs ordered out of learning hall by the machine. The Doctor & Zoe realise that there are gaps in the Gonds knowledge: they use solar energy but have no knowledge of chemistry. They decide to visit the learning hall, but on the way the Doctor finds that there are chambers under the hall and goes to have a look. Zoe uses the learning machines and passes the tests with the highest scores ever recorded. She says Krotons were pleased with her. Vana wakes and is distraught, talking of a flashing ball burning her mind. The Doctor says the foundations of the machine were like a root structure, and speculates if the machine is organic, a living thing. Zoegond (Zoe) is summoned by Krotons to be a companion. The Doctor takes the test too, and feels that the Krotons were pleased with him. He too passes and Doctorgond too is summoned as a companion. The Doctor and Zoe enter machine just as Jamie arrives to stop them. Inside it becomes apparent that the machine is a spaceship. The Doctor and Zoe sit down, where they are restrained by a forcefield. A glowing ball appears subjecting the travellers to a painful bright light and a level in a machine rises. When the gauge reaches a certain level two tanks start to bubble. The Doctor and Zoe wake drained, theorising that the machine has transferred their mental powers into energy for it's own purposes. The tanks bubble away attracting their attention. The Doctor takes a sample of the liquid, which he thinks is slurry composed of suspended crystals. A form begins to coalesce in each of the tanks. Jamie tries to enter the Kroton's machine to help his friends. Awakening the Krotons search for the missing "Gongs", the Doctor and Zoe) who have left the control chamber and are trying to escape. The Doctor opens the ship's rear door. They jump out to the sides of the door to avoid the gas guns which the Krotons refer to as he dispersion unit. The Krotons track them and decide to order the Gongs to trap them. The Krotons see Jamie on their screen and realise he's not a Gond so admit him to the machine. His mind is tested, but he is ruled to not be a high brain but a primitive at which point the Krotons state the power will kill him.

Oh that's lovely that is. The Doctor scolds Zoe for playing with the teaching machine, but that was on his mind all along as is obvious by the way he leaves Jamie behind giving him a not 100% satisfactory explanation. Our Jamie isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer as evidenced by his assessment by the Krotons later!

Episodes 2 & 3 existed as 16mm prints at the BBC in 1978 when Ian Levine visited the Film & Video library. I'll be honest: this episode looks rubbish on VHS. As to why .... well some recent internet comments on the Krotons DVD might throw some light on the matter!

ClassicDW (Dan Hall) said

Restoration work on The Krotons going better than expected, thanks to help from @BFI providing original negs for selected eps

which Steve Roberts of the Restoration Team translates as

Or to put it another way, "Restoration work on The Krotons ground to a dismal halt when it was discovered that half of the BBC negatives were poor quality dupes, thank **** the BFI hold the originals instead!"

I await the forthcoming crystal clear DVD with interest.

You see the Krotons has always has a special place in my heart: due to it being the only 4 part Troughton story existing at the time it was chosen to represent the Second Doctor in the Five Faces of Doctor Who season broadcast in 1981. It was broadcast from Monday 9th to Thursday 12th November on BBC2 and earned the wrath of many older fans for being broadcast instead of supposedly much better stories such as Tomb of the Cybermen. A few weeks later the Doctor Who Monthly Winter Special was released showing what state the Doctor Who archives were really in (well bar a few tinsy errors!)

OK, so I didn't get round to the German submarines today. Tomorrow then, I promise.

228 The Krotons: Episode One

EPISODE: The Krotons: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 228
STORY NUMBER: 047
TRANSMITTED: 28 December 1968
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: VHS: Doctor Who: The Krotons

WARNING! Do not put Krotons in your soup!

Gosh it's video time. This is the only complete Troughton story that we'll watch on VHS.

Abu Gond and Vana Gond have been selected to become companions of the Krotons. Abu goes through the doors into the machine first but Thara, Vana's love, objects to her going and delays proceeding. The Tardis lands on the Gond planet. Finding the back door to the machine, they see Abu disintegrated by gas guns. Travelling to the Gond city The Doctor, Jamie & Zoe arrive as Vana goes into the machine, quickly working out what will happen to her. The Gonds tell the travellers that the Krotons are in machine. The Time Travellers return to the wasteland with Thara and rescue Vana as she leaves the machine, but the Doctor's favourite umbrella is destroyed to his distress. Selris, the Gonds' leader, explains to the travellers that the Gond's two best students are selected to enter the machine to join the Krotons. No living Gond has ever seen the Krotons. Years ago silver men came from sky, killing the Gonds and creating the poisonous wasteland that nobot had been in till the Doctor walked out of it. While they talk Thara and his friends sneak into learning hall to smash the teaching machines. Since the war the Gonds have lived in peace with the Krotons with their best 2 students of every class going into the machine to be their companions. Having seen what happens to the companions the Doctor decides to stop the Krotons. Beta reposrt to selris what Thara is doing. They go to the learning hall to stop it. Inside the machine a device in a control roomn observes what is happening. A voice booms into the learning hall telling the Gonds to leave. The Doctor tries to get Gonds to stop as an eye on a stalk emerges from the machine and observes the Doctor pinning him to floor......

I like that: The Doctor shows up, takes one look at what's going on and decides that's got to change. OK yes, people are dying, so it's obvious it needs to stop but the Gonds have been living this way for a long time, unaware that their brightest and best are going to their dooms. The element of the best being taken reminds me of how the fittest/most beautiful are taken away to the city by the Tripods in John Christopher's The Tripods Trilogy to serve the unseen Masters. But as we'll see the author of this story will be not be averse to filing off the serial numbers and sticking to Malcolm Hulke's maxim that "All you need to work in television is a good idea. It needn't be your own"....

And that brings us quite nicely to this stories author, on Who debut here so Ladies & Gentlemen please welcome Robert Holmes. Saying he's a former army office, policeman and journalist doesn't do justice to it so read his Wikipedia entry. Holmes had started writing for television in the late fifties. He submitted a story, the Trap, to the Doctor Who office in 65 where it was rejected. He resubmitted it in 1968 and Terrance Dicks decided he liked the look of it and developed it as a "reserve story". When the scripts for season six started going Tango Ultra - two stories had previously held the Krotons slot - the story was pressed into service. Robert Holmes had found Doctor Who and Doctor Who had found him. The two would only really be parted by Holmes' untimely death in 1986 while writing the concluding instalments of The Trial of A Timelord. Get used to his name, you'll be hearing a LOT more about him. Holmes was always very good at finding interesting ways for people to die: disintegrated by gas is just the start!

This episode survived as a 35mm transmission print in the BBC Film & Video library. I'm obviously spoilt by DVD as this looked nowhere near as good as I expected it to.

During a fight in this episode Jamie can be seen wearing a wrist watch. It's not so much an anachronism as he's been travelling in the Tardis for a while but it does jump out at you!

Come back tomorrow when I'll talk German submarines and finally, 225 episodes since I last mentioned it, get back to that 1981 repeat season!

227 The Invasion: Episode Eight

EPISODE: The Invasion: Episode Eight
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 227
STORY NUMBER: 046
TRANSMITTED: 21 December 1968
WRITER: Derrick Sherwin & Kit Pedler
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Invasion

At missile control the crew celebrate Zoe destroying the Cyberfleet. The Brigadier is contacted by Benton who tells them that they overheard on the Doctor's radio that the Cybermen will send their Megatron bomb to Earth. Vaughan destroys cyber machine with the Cerebration Mentor . The Doctor says Vaughan must turn of the radio beam that the cyber ships was using as guidance to stop the Cybermen delivering their bomb. Packer is killed by a Cyberman which is in turn killed by the Doctor with Cerebration Mentor. The Doctor calls UNIT in to attack the transmitter at the IE compound and have the Cyber ship attacked by missile. The Brigadier sends a helicopter for them. Captain Turner reports the Russians are ready to launch their rocket with a warhead attached. The rocket is launched. The Doctor and Vaughan are taken by helicopter to the IE compound where they attack Cybermen with the Cerebration Mentor. They find their destination is guarded by Cybermen. UNIT arrives and battle Cybermen on the ground. Rocket launchers and grenades prove successful. The Doctor & Vaughan reach the transmitter control but Vaughan is slain by Cybermen and the Doctor chased away. However he meets UNIT who destroy the Cybermen and the transmitter. The Cybermen spaceship approaches earth to avoid the Russian rocket and deliver the megatron bomb. The Russian Rocket is diverted. The Cyber Megatron Bomb is launched, but Henlow Downs fires it's missiles destroying the bomb and the Russian Rocket destroys the Cyber ship. Later Captain Turner drives Isobel along with The Doctor, Zoe & Jamie to the field in which they left the invisible Tardis. The Doctor makes it visible and they dematerialise to the astonishment of Isobel & Captain Turner.

I'm sorry, but apart from the location filmed battle sequences this episode is struggling a bit. UNIT troops vs the Cybermen looks good, but there's large amounts of stock footage used, two from the previous episode, one of which I could swear is used twice in this episode but flipped, and a new section of the rocket launching. A lot of the important action, mainly the destroying of the transmission control, happens off screen presumably another casualty of the locations problems that cost us Watkins' rescue previously. Sergeant Walters disappears this episode, replaced by Benton. John Levene's elevation to speaking role in this story is sometimes reported as he replaced another actor who was continually late but it maybe this story just applies to this episode. The Cybership design in this episode returned to our screens recently in "A Good Man Goes To War"

Making it's Doctor Who debut in this story is the TCC Condensers round the corner from "The Acton Hilton", the BBC's famed rehersal rooms. It'll be back twice in Pertwee's first year!

This is Patrick Troughton's last meeting with the Cybermen, and in fact the last Cybermen story until Revenge of the Cybermen in April 75 by which point Tom Baker will be the Doctor. Jon Pertwee, barring cameos, never encounters the Cybermen during the five years he was in the title role. Having waited six plus years for their next major appearance the Cybermen then wait seven more till March 1982 when they return in Earthshock.

The Invasion is the longest Second Doctor story so far, beating the seven part Evil of the Daleks. But as things turn out it won't even be the longest story this season!

The Invasion was adapted for book form by Ian Marter and published in October 1985. The cover is one of my favourites of the entire range and the only book to have an Invasion style Cyberman on the cover to actually feature them - they also appear on the covers of The Cybermen (Moonbase) and Tomb of the Cybermen. The Invasion was released as a double pack video during the 30th anniversary year 1993 with links recorded by Nicholas Courtney replacing the missing episodes 1 & 4. The Soundtrack to all eight episodes was released on CD in a box with The Tenth Planet as Doctor Who: Cybermen in 2004 and a solo release followed in early 2006. A DVD of the six surviving episodes and animated reconstructions of episodes 1 & 4 was released in 2006.