343 Frontier in Space Episode Six

EPISODE: Frontier in Space Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 343
STORY NUMBER: 067
TRANSMITTED: 31 March 1973
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard and David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Dalek War: Frontier in Space & Planet of the Daleks
Episode Format: 625 video

Jo sees the Master as a Drashig, a Mutants & a Sea Devil but she concentrates and sees through the illusion. The Doctor, General Williams & the Draconian Prince leave for the Ogron planet. Jo starts to tunnel out of her cage using a spoon. Following an attack by a Draconian Battle Cruiser the Doctor has to Spacewalk to make repairs. Jo escapes and witnesses the Ogrons sacrificing food to their god, a giant orange creature, before taking the Master's fear device and finding the radio which she uses to call for help. The Doctor hears the report and decides to land, but the Master recaptures Jo telling her she has baited his trap. The Doctor's repairs overheat as the ship comes into land. Exploring they are attacked by Ogrons who are in turn attacked by the orange monster they worship as a God. The Master speaks with his employers looking forward to their arrival. The Doctor's party witness the ship landing from a distance, and the Doctor feels a premonition of danger. They captured by The Master and his employers The Daleks! The Daleks want to exterminate the Doctor but the Master persuades them to leave the Doctor in his custody so he may witness what will happen to Earth. Imprisoned with Jo, the Doctor's party escape using the Master's fear device to convince an Ogron there is a Dalek locked in the cage which he must open. General Williams & The Prince leave to warn their respective governments. The Master & Ogrons capture the Doctor & Jo, but the Doctor activates the fear device, terrifying the Ogrons. In the confusion the Doctor is shot by the Master. Jo helps the wounded Doctor into the Tardis where he dematerialises and activates the telepathic circuits sending a message to the Time Lords......

Right .... Make yourself comfortable: we're going to be here a while today. Frontier in Space has already given me much more to talk about than most Doctor Who stories and the final episode is no exception.

As a piece of dramatic television this last episode isn't bad at all. Over the end of the last episode and start of this one Jo shows real character development: She's no longer the naive girl that easily falls for the Master's hypnotic command delivering the bomb in Terror of the Autons, here she first resists his hypnotic powers and then resists the fear machine. General Williams seems like a different character to that which was in the first few episodes, finding out what he did and how many innocent deaths he caused has rapidly changed him. Of course when The Doctor gets to the Ogron planet then the real power behind the plan emerges: The Daleks. Since his work on Day of the Daleks someone's obviously taken Paul Bernard to one side and given him some tips on how to make your meagre number of Daleks look more than you have. There's still three Dalek cases available for the team to use, but like Day one is still painted Gold so the location work at Beachfields Quarry effectively has two grey Daleks to play with and thanks to multiple reveals of one or two Daleks we think there's a much larger force present here than there is.

One actor is credited in this episode but doesn't appear: Bill Mitchell would have been a Newscaster, seen on the wall of the president's office during the sequence where she watches Congressman Brook's speech. This was cut for timing reasons after recording and since an earlier edit of episode 6 doesn't exist it'll never be seen. We'll gloss over the previous credits for Dalek Operators John Scott Martin & Murphy Grumbar because they've appeared loads before and are back in the next story, but we will point out that this is Cy Town's debut in a Dalek shell, after working as an extra on previous Doctor Who stories, and he'll return in every other Dalek story for the rest of the series. Also on Dalek debut here is Michael Wisher, who we've just seen in Carnival of Monsters so look at previous blog entries for his other credits, as the Dalek voice which will lead to his most famous role of all. Jon Pertwee also gets to provide a very poor Dalek voice in this episode, but since it's part of the illusion the Ogron is witnessing we'll let him off

While we're on the subject of the Daleks we aught to note this is the last appearance of the Gold Dalek in Doctor Who. He gets resprayed grey for the next story, Planet of the Daleks, but isn't the Dalek used in the CSO sequence at the end of the first episode of that story. One of the Daleks props will later be resprayed Gold, a colour which it will remain for most of the Seventies appearing on Nationwide, going to hospital fetes and, famously, appearing in *that* photo set with Katy Manning. DISCLAIMER: Don't go looking for "Katy Manning Dalek" on the Internet while at work.

With the Daleks being revealed, we can now see Frontier in Space for what it is. Wanting to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Doctor Who Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks decided to do an epic story similar to the Hartnell 12 parter the Dalek Masterplan. (does that then make the Master the Meddling Monk?) They decided to make their story out of two separate but linked six parters. For it's part Frontier in Space has done the job, it's told the story of a potential war between Earth & Draconia which the Daleks would use to weaken both sides and move in. We now know the Daleks are around, and they have an army somewhere and that leads us into the second half of the epic, but still leaves Frontier in Space standing as a story in it's own right. I'd approached Frontier dreading it, as I had it down as the off story this season but once again episodic watching has proved me wrong, highlighting episodes 3 & 4 as the problems. I think we can vastly improve the story loosing some of the escape/recapture stuff from episode 2, the moon prison in 3, the Spacewalk stuff in 4 and the Draconian attack & another spacewalk in 6. The attack would have been useful if it had caused the ship to crash but as it is it serves no purpose except to delay the Doctor getting to the Ogron planet and reduce the amount of screen time for the Daleks! With that stuff gone you'll have a reasonable four parter. It'll need a little sewing together between the existing parts 2 & 5 so have the Master turn up and take the Doctor & Jo from Earth, or better yet have him do it with the Ogrons, let them get massacred leaving the Master escaping with the captive Doctor & Jo on their own together to get captured by the Draconians as per the end of episode 4. The story itself is frequently credited as a dry run for Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks' Moonbase 3 but personally I think this story feels more like Blake's 7, especially this episode with the style of Dudley Simpson's music and the Hyperspace effect deployed behind the model work.

The ending of this episode is a bit of a mess: As scripted it would have involved the Ogron eating monster/god thing. From it's brief appearance on screen we can see it's little more than an orange duvet. I presume we would have seen it frightening the Ogrons off.... So during the next story David Maloney records a new sequence to finish the episode, presumably the bits in the Tardis, which help link Frontier in Space & Planet of the Daleks together in a manner not seen since the Hartnell & Troughton stories.

It's time to show the completed "locked up" tally

Episode 1:
1) The Doctor & Jo are locked up by the crew members on the cargo ship
2) Jo is locked up again by the Ogrons.
Episode 2:
3) The Doctor & Jo are locked up in a Cell on Earth
4) Cell on Earth after being taken to President & Draconian Prince
5) Cell on Earth after Doctor escapes from Draconian embassy
Episode 3:
6) Thrown back in cell - Jo's there for most of the episode while the Doctor is mind probed and taken to the president.
7) Doctor taken to lunar penal colony
8) Doctor locked in airlock
Episode 4:
9) The Doctor in Solitary Confinement after Escape Attempt
10) Jo, and then the Doctor in the Master's ship
11) Jo locked in airlock
12) The Doctor, Jo & the Master locked up in the Master's ship
Episode 5:
13) Jo captured by the Ogrons
and finally episode 6:
14) Jo put in cell on Ogron planet.
15) Jo put back in cell on Ogron planet.
16) Doctor, Prince & General Williams thrown in cell

SIXTEEN times in six episodes ? That's silly. And obviously wasting time somewhere along the line.

Frontier in Space was novelised as The Space War by it's author Malcolm Hulke. It's my favourite Hulke book and I used to borrow it all the time from my local library frequently with Planet of the Daleks which they also had. Frontier is the only story this season not repeated on the BBC, though of course UK Gold have shown it many times. Episode 6 of Frontier in Space was released as part of the Doctor Who: The Pertwee years in March 1992. As we explored in the last episode I suspect Pertwee would have preferred episode five which more prominently features his favourite monsters the Draconians rather than episode six which features just one Draconians and as a bonus also has his least favourite villains the Daleks in it! The whole of Frontier in Space was released on video in August 1995, where the copy of episode five used was the longer earlier edit featuring the Delaware theme. See, they could have stuck the longer episode five, with it's Draconians and odd theme music on the Pertwee Years and used the broadcast version for the whole story release! The story was released on DVD on 5 October 2009 as part of Doctor Who - Dalek War with it's following story Planet of the Daleks.

Sadly this episode is the final appearance in Doctor Who for Roger Delgado's Master. He's last seen shooting at the Doctor and sort of disappears after that which really just isn't right. However this wasn't planned to have been his last appearance by any means. Having been a regular through season 8 he had appeared sporadically during season 9 but had found getting other work hard due to people thinking he was fully committed to Doctor Who. Discussing the matter with Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks he was asked if he would like to go quietly or with a bang. He chose the later option and so Barry Letts was developing a story with his writing partner Roger Sloman to close season 11 where the Master & Doctor would end up teaming up to defeat some universe threatening menace which would end with the Master sacrificing himself to save the Doctor, potentially elaborating on the idea that they were school mates and, perhaps, brothers. Jon Pertwee himself leaves at the end of the eleventh season but I don't think his departure was in the minds of the production team at this stage.

Roger Delgado took an acting job on the comedy film "The Bell of Tibet" which required a location shoot in Turkey. Delgado's usual practice for working on location was to travel with his wife Kismet but on this occasion due to the hours he'd be working they decided it would be better if she stayed at home in Teddington, Middlesex. On 18th June 1973 Roger Delgado was killed in a car crash along with two Turkish film technicians, when car they were travelling went off the road into a ravine. He was 55. His death rocked the Doctor who team and almost certainly hastened Pertwee's departure from the show.

The character of the Master was removed from the series, not returning until many years later during the Deadly Assassin. An attempt has been made to bridge the gap in John Peel's Eighth Doctor Adventure Legacy of the Daleks. Don't bother looking for it because it's easily the worst book in the range and fan**** of the highest order.

Meanwhile Roger Delgado's widow Kismet found herself virtually penniless when his insurance company refused to pay out on his life insurance due to the driver of the Turkish car not being properly licensed/insured. She was taken in by Jon Pertwee, and his wife Ingeborg, while Barry Letts enabled her to gain an Equity card allowing her to work as an actor. I note her Dixon of Dock Green role was directed by Who director Michael Briant who directed her husband twice and also features Stephen Grief, who narrates the superb Roger Delgado tribute on Doctor Who - Dalek War that's worth the price of the box set by itself. She would later marry the actor William Marlowe, who we've seen in Mind of Evil, working with Roger Delgado, and will shortly see again in Revenge of the Cybermen.

I grew up in the 1980s when Anthony Ainley brought the role of the Master back to prominence. However now I've seen Roger Delgado he gets my vote for best Master.

Join us tomorrow as we start PLANET OF THE DALEKS during the course of which we'll pass a notable personal milestone.

342 Frontier in Space Episode Five

EPISODE: Frontier in Space Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 342
STORY NUMBER: 067
TRANSMITTED: 24 March 1973
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Dalek War: Frontier in Space & Planet of the Daleks
Episode Format: 625 video

The Master's ship lands on Draconia: The Master, Doctor & Jo are taken to the Emperor. The Doctor addresses the Emperor as a noble of Draconia as is his right due to the honour being conferred by the fifteenth Emperor due to his aid to the planet and accuses the Master of provoking war between the two worlds. A spaceship from Earth arrives with a delegation come to see the Emperor, but it's the Ogrons disguised by the hypnotic effect. They rescue the Master, but one of the "Earthmen" is killed and reverts to it's true Ogron form. The Emperor sends the Prince, Doctor & Jo with the Ogron captive to Earth in the Master's ship. The ship is attacked by the Ogrons rescuing their missing comrade and capturing Jo, before they are interrupted by the arrival of an Earth cruiser. The Doctor & Prince are taken to the Earth President who grants them help. General Williams overrides her, and ends up arguing with the Prince. It emerges that the General accidentally started the first Earth/Draconia war by opening fire on an unarmed ship that he thought was attacking him. A penitent General Williams agrees to help and lead the expedition to the Ogron planet. The Master has taken Jo to the Ogrons' planet where she and the Tardis form the bait for a trap for him. Jo resists the Master's hypnotic control so the Master subjects her to his fear device....

I watched this episode with my son Jonathan, who's nearly 5. After it finished he turned to me and said "I like Doctor Who". You know he's about the same age I was when I started watching Doctor Who. And it is a pretty good episode with the Draconian court, an Ogron attack and finally people starting to listen to the Doctor. The Master's rage at the Ogrons for having one of their number left behind is fabulous, but in the book it works even better when an Ogron, who's obviously going places, comes up to the Masters and says "I count" before telling him that there's one of them missing! As we've already said, The Revelation of General Williams having started the first Earth/Draconia war should have been prefigures in an earlier episode so here the entire story comes out of left field instead of presenting the general's version of it first. Hmmm, we already thing Star Trek: The Next Generation's writers had seen this story I wonder if Babylon 5's J. Michael Straczynski had either as the plot element of accidentally opening fire on a defenceless ship is familiar there as the spark for the Earth Minbari war.....

We've got occasional Doctor Who guest artist John Woodnutt playing the Draconian Emperor, who was previously George Hibbert in Spearhead from Space, in the dual roles of Broton and His Grace, the Duke of Forgill in Terror of the Zygons, and Seron in The Keeper of Traken. Meanwhile the Draconian messenger is played by Ian Frost who was Baccu in The Ark. For the first time in the series the Ogrons are credited: Rick Lester returns from their previous appearance in Day of the Daleks while the remaining two are played by Stephen Thorne & Michael Kilgarriff. Thorne was Azal in The Dæmons and we've just seen him as Omega in The Three Doctors, a role recorded after this story. He'll be back as the final Eldrad in The Hand of Fear. Kilgarriff was the Cyber-Controller in The Tomb of the Cybermen, a role he returns to in Attack of the Cybermen as well as playing the title role in Robot.

The "getting captured" tally for this story stands at 12: here's the one new entry for the episode:

13) Jo captured by the Ogrons

When the BBC's Film & Video Archive was first checked in 1978 they found that they had episodes 4 & 5 on video tape (Incidentally episodes 1, 2, 3, 6 & Planet off the Daleks 3 were the only episodes missing this season). Further investigations at BBC Enterprises showed that they had all 6 episodes as black & white film copies. In July 83 625 line videotape of episodes 1-3 & 6 of Frontier in Space were returned from ABC TV in Australia. These prints are thought to be 3rd or 4th generation copies and nobody is quite sure how the ABC came to have them. At some point after this the BBC Archive discovered that one of their copies of episode 5 is an earlier edit containing the abandoned new "delaware" version of the theme. This copy was used for the story's video release.

This is the only Doctor Who story featuring the Draconians and this episode is their real opportunity to sign showing us the Royal Court that so enrages Jo Grant's feminist leanings, an increasingly common theme in mid 70s Doctor Who. The Masks, a very early make up prosthetic, were created by John Friedlander, allegedly from a cast of the comedian Dave Allen. Jon Pertwee was frequently on record as saying the Draconians were his favourite monster due to the masks allowing the actor underneath to actually act and wanted an episode of Frontier in Space on the Pertwee years tape. I suspect it was this one he was thinking of, with lots of Draconians in, rather than the one that we got, the next which has just one, the Prince!

341 Frontier in Space Episode Four

EPISODE: Frontier in Space Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 341
STORY NUMBER: 067
TRANSMITTED: 17 March 1973
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Dalek War: Frontier in Space & Planet of the Daleks
Episode Format: 625 video

The Doctor & Dale are rescued by the newly arrived Master. They are placed in confinement but the Master blackmails the Governor into releasing the Doctor who is imprisoned on the Master's ship with Jo. The Master intends to take them to the Ogron planet. The Doctor escapes using a wire saw and then spacewalks along the outside of the ship, being slung off during a course correction before using his air to direct him back to the ship. The Master detects the Doctor's absence and investigates as the Doctor seizes control of the ship. The Master locks Jo in the airlock, but as the Doctor struggles with him they are boarded & captured by the Draconians. The Doctor says he has information for the Emperor so all three are imprisoned together for the journey to Draconia, which the Doctor has visited before. The Master activates a beacon & summons his Ogron allies.

Hmmmm. The start of the episode, as the Master rescues the Doctor from the moon, and the end, as they're boarded by the Draconians, are fine but the middle with the Doctor & Jo in a cell then escaping and the interminably slow business with the spacewalk is just appalling. Then there's the moon prison stuff from the previous episode that continues into this one: a little bit of colour for the story, highlighting that the Earth regime keeps political prisoners but that's it, it serves no other function other than to eat up about an episode of time. You could have easily cut most of this episode, no problem, especially as the three most important characters in the story, The Earth President, General Williams & the Draconian Prince don't appear. I'll come back to this in episode six.

We've already criticised Paul Bernard for his directing in episode 1: here we get the most appalling episode end as we close on a shot of the back of an Ogron. However, if memory serves, this is one of those occasions where I think an episode ending had to be moved round during recording. If you think the interior of the Master's ship is familiar then you're right: it's the cargo freighter from the first two episodes redressed, with the cargo hold where the Tardis lands now incorporating the prisoner's cage with it's yellow rails now resprayed black. Rather amusingly, given the conflict he's trying to engineer, the Master is reading a copy of HG Wells' War of the Worlds.

Oh look, there's a prop we recognise! The Doctor's spacesuit helmet was previously worn by Beaus one of the delegates at the Dalek's conference in Dalek Masterplan. It'll be back on a different spacesuit in episode 6 and again in the next story.

Time to update the "locked up" tally for the story, currently at 8:

9) The Doctor in Solitary Confinement after Escape Attempt
10) Jo, and then the Doctor in the Master's ship
11) Jo locked in airlock
12) The Doctor, Jo & the Master locked up in the Master's ship

and we've still 2 episodes to go!

340 Frontier in Space Episode Three

EPISODE: Frontier in Space Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 340
STORY NUMBER: 067
TRANSMITTED: 10 March 1973
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Dalek War: Frontier in Space & Planet of the Daleks
Episode Format: 625 video

The Doctor & Jo escape from the Ogrons during the attack and are re-imprisoned. General Williams tries to coerce the President into action against the Draconians by intimating she will be replace. The Doctor is subjected to the mind probe which says he is telling the truth. Williams still doesn't believe him, turning up the power on the mind probe which blows up. The Doctor is taken to the President and sentenced to the lunar penal colony. The Doctor immediately falls out with another prisoner Cross, who works as a trustee. The commissioner from Sirius-4 arrives requesting the transfer of The Doctor & Jo for crimes committed there: It's the Master. The Doctor starts planning his escape with a fellow prisoner, Professor Dale. The Master collects Jo from the prison to his space ship and leaves for the moon to get the Doctor. He is behind the Ogrons and was very surprised when they brought him the Doctor's Tardis. Cross gives Dale information about how to escape which he tells the Doctor allowing the two to leave together. They are to steal spacesuits and walk across the moon to a waiting ship. However when they enter the airlock they find their oxygen cylinders empty, and someone has started the decompression sequence.

A bit of a slow episode this one, low on the action, but it's livened up a bit by dropping The Master into proceedings as Roger Delgado gives his usual excellent performance. There's a nice little replay of the action in episode 1 on a black & white TV screen during the Doctor's interrogation by the Mind Probe (No, Not the Mind Probe!!!!) You are left wondering about where Jo's been able to get a new outfit from when she turns up in the black Kung-Fu gear but I suspect it's prison clothes: compare with the outfits the lunar prisoners are wearing, albeit in a different colour and fabric. I did laugh when the lunar prisoners were served their drinks as they appear to be drinking out of babies sippy cups!

Back to our imprisoned stakes (currently at 5) We'll ignore being captured by the Ogrons as they don't actually get to sling them in the cell.

6) Thrown back in cell - Jo's there for most of the episode while the Doctor is mind probed and taken to the president.
7) Doctor taken to lunar penal colony
8) Doctor locked in airlock

We're into the second recording block for the series so we get treated to some new actors, several of whom are imprisoned on the Moonbase. Madhav Sharma plays Patel and although this is his only Doctor Who appearance he has a semi regular role in Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks' Moonbase 3, which Frontier in Space is generally seen as a rehearsal for. Oddly enough when I dug out the Doctor Who Magazine Third Doctor Special Edition to check something to do with this story I discovered an advert for The Moonbase on DVD on the back! Richard Shaw, as trustee Cross, was Lobos in The Space Museum and returns as Lakh in Underworld. Caroline Hunt, the Mind Probe Technician was previously Danielle in The Reign of Terror. Luan Peters is Sheila, the President's assistant who is massaging her. She's been in Doctor Who before as Chicki in The Macra Terror (in which she was credited as Karol Keyes) but here gets all of her lines cut. She was meant to tell us that he young General Williams had destroyed a Draconian battle-cruiser – not realising that it was unarmed, and merely being used to transport the Draconian envoy. The plot point will resurface later.

We're entering a run of stories that all use at least one of the most common words in Doctor Who titles. Here it's Space as used in:

The Sensorites #1: Strangers in Space
The Space Museum #1: The Space Museum
The Wheel in Space
The Space Pirates
Spearhead from Space
Colony in Space
Frontier in Space
The Ark in Space

Easy to use: Find something, say it's in Space. Job done. Come back for more of the same during the next few stories.

339 Frontier in Space Episode Two

EPISODE: Frontier in Space Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 339
STORY NUMBER: 067
TRANSMITTED: 03 March 1973
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Dalek War: Frontier in Space & Planet of the Daleks
Episode Format: 625 video

The Doctor & Jo are locked up on the cargo ship again, this time under guard. The Doctor once again wonders who's behind the Ogrons. The Cargo freighter arrives back on Earth with the Doctor & Jo taken to General Williams who locks them up, convinced they are Draconian agents & traitors. The Doctor is told he will be subjected to the mind probe and tells of how he previously fooled one. They are brought before the Draconian Prince who denies they are Draconian agents while the Doctor alleges to both Draconian Prince and Earth President that he believes a third party is trying to provoke war. Williams dismisses their story & they are then taken back to their cell. The Doctor attempts escape but sets off an alarm on the door. The Draconians are suspicious of what they have heard & seen and decide to kidnap the Doctor & Jo to question them. Arranging for them to be questioned in the presence of the President the Draconians seize the Doctor as they're being transported, but Jo is recaptured by her prison guards and questioned by the President & Williams. The Draconians are convinced the Doctor is an Earth agent working for General Williams to provoke war. They too doubt his story that a third party was involved in the attack on the Earth vessel. The Doctor escapes from the Draconian embassy and is immediately re-arrested by the humans and brought back to Jo in the cells. Jo hears the hypnotic sound she heard on the cargo ship as the prison is assaulted by Ogrons whom the guards see as Draconians. They have been sent for the Doctor & Jo.

There's a rather lengthy reprise on this episode taking 2 of the episode's 24 minutes so it takes a while to get going and when it does we get into a round of "Nobody believes the Doctor & Jo's story so they're slung into a cell".... The Draconians themselves draw attention to General William's warmongering and at this stage he's quite an annoying one dimensional character. The episode is livened up by some really superb location footage, something Paul Bernard did seem able to do right both here and in Day of the Daleks. The Draconian Embassy is portrayed by the peculiar design of 8a Fitzroy Park, at the time the home of BBC Director Naomi Capon. While Capon never worked on Doctor Who she did direct the Out of the Unknown second series episode The Prophet which features the Mind Robber robots in their earlier black colour scheme. The prison environs were filmed at the stark concrete South Bank Centre. Arriving at this later location early one morning and finding several local down & outs asleep they were scared away by the imposing actors wearing Ogron costumes.

We had Polarity Reversal last episode. Now we have more than one threat to use a Mind Probe. All together now: "No, Not The Mind Probe!"

We now resume our Doctor and/or Jo Locked up tally (2 so far from episode 1)
3) Cell on Earth
4) Cell on Earth after being taken to President & Draconian Prince
5) Cell on Earth after Doctor escapes from Draconian embassy

This episode has a major error on the end credits repeating the slides for episode 1 resulting in several actors credits being wrong. Louis Mahoney appears as the ground breaking black Newscaster, pre-dating Trevor MacDonald's ITN appointment by 16 years. He'll return as Ponti in Planet of Evil, and the elder Billy Shipton in Blink. Roy Pattison appears as the Draconian Space Pilot here and as Zazzka in The Hand of Fear. Both these actors only appear in episode 1, but are credited in episode 2 due to Episode 1's credits being reused. Meanwhile Lawrence Davidson, playing the Draconian First Secretary, and Timothy Craven, the Cell guard who returns as Robinson in Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Short in Robot, both appear in Episode 2 only, but are uncredited due to the aforementioned mistake. Barry Ashton, as Kemp the officer on Earth's table cruiser, is properly credited for both episode. He played a Scientist in The Moonbase & Proctor in The Time Monster.

338 Frontier in Space Episode One

EPISODE: Frontier in Space Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 338
STORY NUMBER: 067
TRANSMITTED: 24 February 1973
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Dalek War: Frontier in Space & Planet of the Daleks
Episode Format: 625 video

In deep space an Earth Cargo Ship narrowly misses the Tardis in space which dematerialises and reappears in the cargo hold. Another ship draws alongside which Jo witnesses shimmer and turn into a different ship when she hears an odd noise. The crew witness it as well and identify it as belonging to the Draconians, Earth's enemies with whom an uneasy truce exists. The Doctor & Jo are found by a ship's crew member who sees them as Draconians while Jo sees him as a Drashig. They are locked in the hold while the ship is attacked and boarded. Earth is alerted while the president hears a complaint from the Draconian Prince, the ambassador to Earth, who is accusing the Earthmen of raiding their ships. General Williams mounts a rescue attempt for the attacked ship. The Draconian Prince accuses the Earthmen of provoking them to war. The Doctor works out that Jo & the crew have been subjected to ultrasonics that affect the fear centres of their brain to make them see what they fear most. The Doctor & Jo are taken to the airlock as hostages as the the aliens break through: Ogrons. The Doctor is wounded in their attack. The Doctor wakes to find Jo imprisoned and the Tardis gone. The Doctor wonders who the Ogrons are working for. They find the stunned crew members as Earth's battle cruiser draws alongside & docks. The Doctor & Jo are arrested for being stowaways & traitors

So two alien races at each other throats along a common border? Do you think it's possible that Malcolm Hulke had seen the classic Star Trek episode Balance of Terror, which introduces the Romulans, before he wrote this story? The way the Ogron ship shimmers and vanishes at the end as if it's being cloaked also adds some weight to the argument that he had. Oddly years later Star Trek return the favour: When the Romulans are reintroduced during the Next Generation episode The Neutral Zone, they & the Federation are brought to the brink of conflict by a third party making raids along outposts on both sides, much like the Ogrons here. (They don't show us who the villains are in the Star Trek: TNG episode and leave it as a hanging plot thread to be resolved early in the next season. A writer's strike intervened and so it wasn't until a year later it's revealed that the Borg, Star Trek's version of the Cybermen, are revealed to be responsible.) That Star Trek episode has an on-screen Doctor Who reference as well, showing the names of the first six Doctors in a family tree which makes me think that maybe, just maybe, the borrowing of the story idea is intentional.

Here though the revelation that it's the Ogrons attacking the ship is botched in the worst way possible. Instead of a nice action shot of them storming in through the smouldering door, we're treated to a shot of them trying to cut through the door a minute or so beforehand. Nice one. What it reminds me of is the reveal in Day of the Daleks that the Daleks are in charge of the Earth half way through the episode instead of keeping them behind the scenes till the end of the episode. The director of both stories is Paul Bernard, one of the few people who I've ever heard producer Barry Letts be openly critical of, so I'm inclined to lay the blame at his feet. Even if Mac Hulke & Day's writer Louis Marks had made similar errors surely the Director should have spotted something that affects the dramatic flow of the story, especially one like this that involves a fully practical special effect with the Ogrons cutting through the door? Given that the Ogrons previous appearance in Doctor Who was as slaves to the Daleks was it a good idea to draw attention to this in the opening episode? Especially considering how the story plays out, albeit with a bit of a diversion on the way..... I've got a book here that says "You've got two guesses as to who's trying to provoke a war between Earth & Draconia. And they're both right"

Applause please for "reversing the polarity of the ultrasonic screwdriver's power source" !

Frontier in Space has a reputation for the Doctor & Jo spending a lot of time under lock & key. We shall keep track:

1) They are locked up by the crew members on the cargo ship
2) Jo is locked up again by the Ogrons.

More later as we progress through the story.....

337 Carnival of Monsters Episode Four

EPISODE: Carnival of Monsters Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 337
STORY NUMBER: 066
TRANSMITTED: 17 February 1973
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)
Episode Format: 625 video

The Doctor is restored to his full size. The officials tell the Doctor where he is and he's pleased to find the Tardis. He tells them they have allowed the import of a machine forbidden by intergalactic law. Vorg thinks the Doctor is a carnival performer but the Doctor berates him from using the scope to hold intelligent lifeforms. Knowing the scope is failing the Doctor retrieves a device from the Tardis which allows him to be reinserted into the machine to rescue Jo. He leaves Vorg with instructions to activate the device again later. The humans in the malfunctioning scope collapse due to the heat. The Drashigs escape from the scope and go on the rampage. Vorg finds the missing part in his baggage and uses it to reactivate the eradicator & destroy the Drashigs. He activates the Doctor's device causing the specimens inside to be returned to where they came. The Doctor & Jo materialise by the scope as it blows up. Back in 1926 Major Daly finally finishes his book as he bids Clare good night. Vorg regales Plectrac with tales of how he defeated the Drashig and then engages him in a game of chance as the Doctor & Jo leave in the Tardis.

The twin dangers of the escaping Drashigs and the failing scope add some urgency to this final episode which provides a good resolution too the story. You can say Carnival of Monsters is about things, and several issues have been suggested including immigration, television and Zoos, but above all of these it manages to be a cracking Doctor Who story. Later Doctor Who stories will try and be "about" stuff but be rubbish to watch. This is fab, and seems to have a myriad of issues underneath. While Inferno's my favourite Pertwee story it's a little long for an evening's viewing at 7 parts, so Carnival of Monsters is probably the one I watch the most, is my favourite four part Pertwee and probably my second favourite Third Doctor story.

Interestingly here the Doctor does not understand Vorg's carnival speak: it's the only point in the series history he doesn't understand what's being spoken to him.

As far as I'm able to tell the SS Bernice is fictional.

Carnival of Monsters was novelised by Terrance Dicks. My local library had a copy so it got read several times when I was younger. It was released on video in March 1995 with the alternate edit of episode 2 featuring the unbroadcast theme music. Carnival of Monsters was first released on DVD in July 2002 as the second Jon Pertwee release with a commentary by Katy Manning & Barry Letts. A special edition DVD re-release occurred on 28 March 2011 as part of Doctor Who Revisitations - Volume 2 along with the Seeds of Death and Resurrection of the Daleks. A new commentary for Carnival was recorded featuring Peter Halliday, Cheryl Hall, Jenny McCracken, Brian Hodgson (who makes his last credited appearance as providing Spacial Sound for this story) & Terrance Dicks moderated by Toby Hadoke. For my money it's the best commentary of the entire range with several lesser used performers getting to share their thoughts.

336 Carnival of Monsters Episode Three

EPISODE: Carnival of Monsters Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 336
STORY NUMBER: 066
TRANSMITTED: 10 February 1973
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)
Episode Format: 625 video

The Drashigs pursue the Doctor & Jo by smell. Vorg tells the officials a tale of the Drashigs eating a crashed spaceship. The Doctor detonates marsh gas with sonic screwdriver to cover their escape back to the cave, aided by Vorg's physical intervention. The Doctor deduces that they are trapped in a Minicscope, a device which he had the High Council of the Time Lords ban. This one was missed from the recall. The Drashigs escape into the scope's workings as the officials try to decide what to do. Kalik admits to Orum that he hoped the Drashigs would escape which was why he suggested Vorg intervene. he hopes they escape from the machine to provoke a rebellion against his brother Zarb. The Doctor & Jo return to the Bernice for rope to escape down the shaft. Daly & Andrews hear the Drashigs and investigate, discovering Jo and capturing her. The Drashigs break through the hull bulkhead into the ship. Kalik sabotages the eradicator, hiding it's power supply in the scope to incriminate Vorg and potentially allow the Drashigs into the city. The ship's crew attack the Drashigs with explosives damaging the scope's workings. The humans resume their preset patterns, annoying Jo, as the Doctor escapes into the scope and into the outside world......

For most viewers this episode is about some rampaging monsters but we continue our little digs at television with Jo's "people outside just looking at us for kicks" while the previous comical officials start to take a more sinister tone as Kalik plots against his brother Zarb.

Right a bit of a first here: Whenever I do a Doctor Who story I try to tell you something interesting or point out other Doctor Who appearances for the cast members. This is the first time I know something about ALL of them. First we have the Lurmans both of whom you may know from Sitcoms. Leslie Dwyer is Vorg who I remember as Mr. Partridge the Punch and Judy man in Hi-De-Hi! who died in 1986 during the production of the series necessitating a reshuffle in the cast. I hadn't realised what an extensive film career he'd had. His assistant Shirna was played by Cheryl Hall shortly to find fame as Shirley, the girlfriend of Wolfie Smith in Citizen Smith. She was later married to her co-star in that show, Robert Lindsay. Later in life she became involved in labour party politics and tells a story on the Carnival of Monseters Special Edition DVD commentary of being interviewed by Shaun Ley where she was expecting to be quizzed on the issue she was supporting and he wanted to talk about Carnival of Monsters, having gained an angle that Vorg & Shirna were effectively illegal immigrants.

Onto the Bernice: Major Daly is played by Tenniel Evans who is most famous for his role in the long running radio series Navy Lark with Jon Pertwee. Seeing that Patrick Troughton was leaving Doctor Who he suggested to Pertwee the he should replace him! Later in his career Evans himself replaced Troughton in ITV comedy series The Two Of Us after Troughton's death. Ian Marter plays Lt John Andrews, and was previously considered for Mike Yates, but couldn't commit to a long term engagement. However Barry Letts, Doctor Who's producer, remembered him and cast him in this story which he directed. He later goes on to play Doctor Harry Sullivan, the fourth Doctor's companion the last regular role Letts cast as producer. Likewise Jenny McCracken, who played Claire Daly, had auditioned for Letts as Jo Grant, coincidentally alongside Cheryl Hall. Both got into last 6 for role, and Letts remembered them and recalled them for this story. Some years later McCracken's agent went bust owing her a not inconsiderable amount of money. Writing to many casting directors Barry Letts was one of the few people she rang up. He immediately found a role for her in a forthcoming classic serial and continued to cast her in those productions. The boat's captain, seen only in the location sequences in these episodes, is played by Andrew Staines making the third of his four Doctor Who appearances having been in The Enemy of the World as Benik's Sergeant & Terror of the Autons as Goodge. We'll see him again in Planet of the Spiders as Keaver, one of Lupton's gang. All four stories he's in are directed by Barry Letts.

Finally the Inter Minor natives: Peter Halliday plays the Pletrac, the head of the tribunal having already appeared in The Invasion as Packer and provided voices in both Doctor Who and the Silurians and The Ambassadors of Death. He'll be back in the City of Death as a Soldier and Remembrance of the Daleks as the Vicar. Kalik is played by Michael Wisher. We've seen him in The Ambassadors of Death as John Wakefield and Terror of the Autons as Rex Farrel. For the next two stories, Frontier in Space & Planet of the Daleks, we'll hear his voice as a Dalek a role he continues in Death to the Daleks and, uncredited, in Genesis of the Daleks where ascends to Doctor Who superstardom as Davros, the Daleks creator. He's then back in the very next story as Magrik in Revenge of the Cybermen then two stories later in the Planet of Evil as Morelli and the voice of Ranjit. Lastly Terence Lodge plays Orum. He was Medok in The Macra Terror and returns as Moss, another member of Lupton's gang in the Letts directed Planet of the Spiders.

335 Carnival of Monsters Episode Two

EPISODE: Carnival of Monsters Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 335
STORY NUMBER: 066
TRANSMITTED: 03 February 1973
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)
Episode Format: 625 video

The giant hand holding the Tardis vanish through the upper deck of the ship. Vorg pulls a small blue Tardis shaped box from the inside of the inner workings of his scope before demonstrating it to the Inter Minor officials. He shows them the Tellurians (the humans on the boat), Ogrons & Drashigs. He explains the creatures are contained in the scope and switches back to the Bernice as the Pleiosaurus arrives. The Doctor & Jo are apprehended again as Vorg increases the violence level in that zone making Andrews challenge the Doctor to a boxing match which the Doctor easily wins allowing them to escape. They open the floorplate just as they are recaptured and Vorg lowers the violence level. Shirna tells a disbelieving Vorg that she hasn't seen the Doctor & Jo before. The Doctor & Jo escape into the inner workings of the scope which fascinate the Doctor. The officials decide that the scope contains illegally imported specimens and decide to destroy it summoning an eradicator. As it is fired the inside of the scope heats up but proves resistant to the weapon. Vorg checks the scope finding the image of a Cyberman within to be fuzzy. Kalik is angry at the eradicator's innability to work and starts plotting against his brother, president Zarb. The Doctor & Jo are trying to escape from an air duct when they are stabbed at by a giant weapon: Vorg has spotted them in the Scope's workings. Kalik, believing Vorg a spy, has the Scope searched by Orum for a transmitter to "waiting Lurman battlefleets". Orum removes the Tardis which grows to it's normal size. The Doctor & Jo get into a different part of the scope where they find themselves in a cave and exit into a marshy realm. Vorg & Shirna spot them where they are attacked by the massive carnivorous Drashigs.

This episode connects the two plot strands: The Doctor & Jo, plus the humans and other specimens are trapped in Vorg's machine. As Doctor Who fans a title like "Carnival of Monsters" makes us expect a cavalcade of the Doctor's past foes: this episode is the closest we get with a guest appearance by the Ogrons, foreshadowing their imminent reappearance in the series. We also get a brief glimpse of the Cybermen, here making their only real appearance of the Pertwee era. They get mentioned a bit, due to Unit's thwarting of their Invasion, and appear as a still during the Doctor's flashback in Mind of Evil but this is their only original footage filmed for Pertwee's Doctor. I don't think he disliked them as such, though he did despise the Daleks with a passion, but it's rumoured one of the production team, so either Barry Letts or Terrance Dicks, wasn't their greatest fan. The main monsters in the story, the Drashigs, are quite effective with the puppet models built round a real dog skull giving them their effective jawline. As a rampaging monster they do the trick nicely. Their name is an anagram of Dishrags with the sound composited from sound engineer Brian Hodgson's dog and some other noises.

Carnival of Monsters was filmed in two separate locations either side of the Thames. The SS Bernice exterior scenes were recorded on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Robert Dundas, moored at Chatham dockyards in Kent awaiting break up. Knowing this Pertwee "salvaged" the elaborate ship's compass but had to return it after it's loss was noticed. Meanwhile the Drashig location scenes are filmed at Tillingham Marshes and the former Cardwells Quarry making Carnival of Monsters one of the only Doctor Who stories to be filmed in Essex.

When this episode was sold to Australia it went out with a new version of the theme tune on it, arranged by Brian Hodgson for the show's tenth anniversary. However all who heard it decided this arrangement was rubbish so they continued to use the existing theme. But somehow the copy Australian television stations were sent of this episode has the newer theme on it. This edit was used for the story's VHS release, and the new theme tune also appears on an earlier edit of Frontier in Space 5, also released on VHS.

334 Carnival of Monsters Episode One

EPISODE: Carnival of Monsters Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 334
STORY NUMBER: 066
TRANSMITTED: 27 January 1973
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)
Episode Format: 625 video

On the planet Inter Minor, Kalik & Orum witness the arrival of the cargo shuttle which discharges the humanoid Lurmans Vorg & Shirna from it's cargo bay along with their scope. One of the functionary workers rebels and is stunned by Kalik. The Tardis materialises in the hold of the SS Bernice in the Indian ocean: The Doctor was aiming for Metebelis III, the famous blue planet in the Acteon Group. Vorg starts his show pitch when the Scope start to show a defect. Exploring the ship they encounter the sleeping Major Daly, while his daughter Clare and her beau Lt John Andrews take a stroll round the deck. Jo finds a paper proving the date as a plesiosaurus surfaces scaring Clare. They are spotted by Daly and held prisoner by Andrews as stowaways and locked in Daly's cabin. En Route The Doctor & Jo find an odd silver hexagonal plate in the floor which Andrews can't see. The Doctor explains to Jo that the Bernice was lost at see on June 4th 1926 which is the day marked on the calender. Jo notices that the clock has gone back an hour while they've been imprisoned. Jo unlocks the door with her skeleton keys and they escape. The third member of commission, Pletrac, arrives and between them they decide to deport Vorg & Shirna. Vorg attempts to deceive them with a document they think is signed by their president Zarb but is actually signed by the Wallarian Wrestler the great Zarb. Returning to the Tardis for a device to open the deck plate, The Doctor & Jo witness the humans on the boat repeating the same things they did before. The Doctor believes they have been programmed to repeat a pattern and that the ship is part of some collection. On que the plesiosaur arrives creating a diversion which allows the Doctor & Jo to get back to the Tardis in the hull. The Doctor goes inside to fetch his magnetic core extractor but is called out by Jo as a giant hand reaches in and removes the Tardis.

From this first episode it almost seems likes there's two disconnected stories going on here: Vorg, Shirna & the three Inter Minor officials plus the Doctor & Jo on the boat. And at no point in this first episode do the stories directly cross. The Doctor's strand has several mysterious elements built in: we know something is going to happen/has already happened to the Bernice on this day. We've also got an out of place plesiosaur, some odd repeating behaviour, the mysterious hexagonal deck plate and, finally, the odd giant hand to contend with! Following Troughton smacking the Tardis console in the previous story to get it working we now have some more "delicate technical adjustments" from Vorg, who also gets to engage in a discussion about his entertainment with Kalik "We are merely here to entertain, nothing political" which is the start of this story's comments on television. There's some fab dialogue in this episode with Vorg, talking about the Scope, "The generators were built by the old Eternity Perpetual company. They were designed to last forever; that's why the company went bankrupt." and Orum, about the functionaries "They've no sense of responsibility. Give them a hygiene chamber and they store fossil fuel in it", which is in itself a corruption of the old phrase "give them a bath and they'll store coal in it!"

Carnival of Monsters was the first Pertwee tale I saw, and also was my introduction to Jo Grant as a companion. It was shown on BBC2 on the 16th to 19th November 1981 as part of the Five Faces of Doctor Who repeat season, but oddly shown the week before it's preceding televised story The Three Doctors. Carnival was made before that tale though, and had an earlier production code so maybe that influenced the decision as well as the desire to show the first episode of Three Doctors on the show's eighteenth birthday. You wonder if an earlier four part Pertwee such as Spearhead from Space, which establishes the Doctor's exile on Earth, or Day of the Daleks, which feature the Doctor's mortal enemies who don't feature during the Five Faces season, might been a better story choice for Doctor Who fans following the repeat run. We'll pick the story of Five Faces with it's fifth and final story on 31st May next year.

333 The Three Doctors Episode Four

EPISODE: The Three Doctors Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 333
STORY NUMBER: 065
TRANSMITTED: 20 January 1973
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Three Doctors
Episode Format: 625 video

The Second Doctor interrupts the conflict saving the Third as the humans escape to UNIT HQ. Omega wishes to be free but can't escape because the singularity needs to be controlled. For him to leave someone must take his place: The Doctor. The Doctors remove Omega's protective gear but find that there's nothing underneath because the singularity has eaten his body away. Just his will remains. Enraged at this discovery he begins to destroy his world allowing the Doctors to flee and shelter with the humans in the Tardis. On the Time Lord planet conditions have become critical. The First Doctor appears on the monitor screen and confers with his other selves coming up with a plan to use the Tardis' force field generator. Trying to remove it they discover the Second Doctor's recorder lodged in the force field generator. They contact Omega with an offer of freedom for him. They use the Tardis to travel to Omega's palace where they bargain with him to return the humans to Earth. One by one they pass through the singularity and are returned home. They offer Omega the force field generator. He knocks it aside in anger releasing the still positive matter recorder from within. The explosion creates a new source of energy for the Time Lords to use. The Tardis appears in UNIT HQ which had been returned to Earth with it's occupants once Omega's will was released. The First Doctor speaks with his other selves then first he and then the second Doctor vanish. As the Doctor mourns for Omega a materialisation noise is heard and a new dematerialisation circuit arrives on the time rotor and he finds his knowledge of time travel restored: The Time Lords, in gratitude for what he has done have ended his sentence allowing him to roam time & the universe again. Mr Ollis arrives home, with his wife demanding to know where he's been. He tells her that she wouldn't believe him and asks if his supper's ready.

We complain often enough about television programs pulling story solutions out of thin air: here the solution has been sign posted throughout and it involves the second Doctor's recorder which fell into the force field generator and was thus protected from anti matter conversion. We'll ignore that the Doctor turned the force field off for the Tardis to get converted. The science of the matter & anti-matter colliding producing an explosion is sound (ish) but we're onto wobblier ground with everything being returned home, reconverted back to positive matter and the Doctors being stuck back into the Tardis! Doctor Tyler drew our attention to some time wasting padding in the previous episode and there's more provided here as five characters are slowly one by one transported back to this world. I'm pretty certain this episode sets a record for "most number of people in the Tardis" at SEVEN with the Second & Third Doctors, Jo Grant, Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, Sergeant Benton, Doctor Tyler & Mister Ollis. This is Sergeant Benton's only visit to the inside of the Tardis but the Brigadier will get another visit some years later.

This episode marks a turning point for the series. Both Barry Letts (Producer) and Terrance Dicks (Script Editor) had been not 100% comfortable with the "Doctor exiled to Earth" idea and had been stretching it for some time. Now the Doctor gets his freedom back and can roam the Galaxy more freely. Unit will return, usually at the start and end of a season of stories for a few years yet. Sadly this episode also marks the last acting role for William Hartnell. As we've seen he wasn't at all well during the making of this story and he died just over two years later on 23rd April 1975 aged 67.

Three Doctors has never been a go to story for me but I loved seeing it this time round. As you probably know I have a few blog entries saved up so sometimes I watch more than on episode in a day. I watched all four episodes on the same day, and found that it rolls along nicely especially compared to the later half of the previous season. The first 2 episodes are especially fabulous as Troughton towers over everything. Apparently he and Pertwee's working methods differed slightly, while Pertwee was a word perfect man Troughton tended to improvise somewhat round the script. However a friendship grew between the two and tales of their later convention exploits, including a water pistol battle, are numerous. They would reunite on screen ten years later during the Five Doctors.

The Three Doctors is the second Pertwee story I saw when it was repeated as the fourth story in the Five Doctors season in 1981. Confusingly it was shown *after* the Carnival of Monsters, which was the show broadcast after this one and makes reference to the Time Lords returning the Doctor's freedom to travel through time & space. So although I'd already seen the Third Doctor & Jo, this was my first encounter with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Sergeant Benton, UNIT and the Time-Lords.

I've heard it suggested that the reason the story was shown after Carnival of Monsters was that the day the first episode was shown was the show's 18th Birthday.... I'm not sure I believe this but it got me thinking..... wouldn't An Unearthly Child have fitted better showing the first episode of that on 23 November? The season would then have run thus:

An Unearthly Child 23 November - 26 November
The Krotons 30 November - 03 December
The Three Doctors 07 December - 10 December
Carnival of Monsters 14 December - 17 December
Logopolis 21 December - 24 December

The last episode of the season, the fourth part of Logopolis, would then have aired on Christmas Eve a little ahead of the firth Doctor's début proper on 4th January 1982. Oddly enough there was a Doctor Who repeat, of sorts, on Christmas Eve that year: K-9 & Company got it's one and only repeat screening.

The Three Doctors was novelised by Terrance Dicks in 1975. It's first cover bears a distinct resemblance to the cover of Fantastic Four #49, published in April 1966. Especially note the fingers and the energy beams coming from them. Coincidentally The Three Doctors is one of the earliest Target novels to be rejacketed with a new cover!

The Three Doctors was released on video on 5th August 1991 alongside Masque of Mandragora..... but I had a copy 2 days previous courtesy of a dealer at a central London comic mart. It was re-released in September 2002 as part of the Time Lord collection boxset for WHSmiths along with a vastly improved War Games and The Deadly Assassin.

The DVD of this story was released on 24th November 2003, the closest Monday (DVD releases always come out on a Monday in the UK) to the program's 40th anniversary. There were two versions of the packaging for this DVD: the normal version and a version with a model of Bessie packed in. This DVD has a major fault with a repeated scene which has never been fixed with a repressing. Having looked at The Restoration Team's chronological list of Doctor Who DVDs The Three Doctor's is one of the earliest DVDs that I still currently own the original of. Vengeance on Varos & The Aztecs were released before The Three Doctors but while Varos is scheduled for a special edition, ostensibly to fix a subtitle fault, the Aztecs does seem to be "earliest released DVD that people are still happy with"!. However, like Varos, The Three Doctors is due to receive a special edition that fixes this fault that will be packed in Revisitations 3 along with a newly Vidfired Tomb of the Cybermen and an improved Robots of Death.

332 The Three Doctors Episode Three

EPISODE: The Three Doctors Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 332
STORY NUMBER: 065
TRANSMITTED: 13 January 1973
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Three Doctors
Episode Format: 625 video

The Third Doctor, Jo & Doctor Tyler are taken to see the ruler of this world, Omega, a Time Lord who the Doctor thought destroyed. He was the solar engineer that gave the Time Lords' Time Travel by detonating a star as a Supernova. He feels he was abandoned but the Doctor protests that they thought he had died. He survived in the anti-matter Universe by force of will and controls it by his mind. Omega detects more visitors as the UNIT HQ carrying the Tardis, Second Doctor, Brigadier & Sergeant Benton arrives. The Brigadier believes the Doctor has transported UNIT HQ to Cromer. He goes to find a phone, pursued by the Doctor, who still wants his recorder, and Benton. The Brigadier locates the missing game warden Ollis who's been stuck in the wasteland for a while and sighted The Third Doctor, Jo & Doctor Tyler being taken off by the Gellguards who have now captured the Second Doctor & Benton. They are taken to Omega where they and the Third Doctor are imprisoned. The Brigadier plans to attack Omega's palace. Jo gets the Doctors to use their will to form a door in their cell allowing their escape. The Doctors find their way to chamber where Omega controls the Black Hole's singularity but Omega is angered that they are free. They fight the dark side of Omega's mind in a psychic battlefield as Jo, Benton & Tyler escape meeting the Brigadier & Ollis on their way out. The First Doctor is summoned by the Time Lords, who are desperately low on energy. They send him through the black hole to aid his other two selves as the Third Doctor is overcome by Omega.

Less Troughton in this episode than the last one which is a shame but he does get to deliver a crucial line, still hunting for his missing recorder. To a first time viewer this could be viewed as narrow minded and silly but it's actually keeping the missing instrument in mind so that when it plays a crucial role in the plot next episode it's not been plucked out of thin air. And of course we get Stephen Thorne at his mad, shouty best.

Of the guest cast in these episodes we'll assume you know who William Hartnell & Patrick Troughton are. Several of the others we've seen before as well. Interestingly two of the most prominent Time Lords have appeared as Time Lords before: Clyde Pollitt, the Chancellor, was one of the three man Time Lord tribunal in The War Games while Graham Leaman was also a Time Lord in Colony in Space. He's also been in The Macra Terror (as the Controller), Fury from the Deep (as Price) and The Seeds of Death (as the Grand Marshall). This is his final Doctor Who appearance. Their superior, the President, is played by Roy Purcell who was Chief Prison Officer Powers in The Mind of Evil. Stephen Thorne, here playing Omega, was Azal in The Dæmons, and had played (but not yet been seen on screen as) an Ogron in Frontier in Space. He returns as Eldrad in The Hand of Fear. More on this story in a second... Rex Robinson, playing Doctor Tyler, will return as Gebek in The Monster of Peladon, and Dr. Carter, also in The Hand of Fear. All 3 of his appearances are directed by Lennie Mayne who evidently takes the Camfield/Letts approach to casting actors he knows and is comfortable working with! This is Mayne's second directorial assignment after The Curse of Peladon and it's the third story written by Bob Baker & Dave Martin. Writers and Director will combine again for the Hand of Fear which, as we mention above, features two of the performers from this tale.

The exterior scenes on Omega's world are filmed at Springwell Quarry, situated in Richmansworth near the story's other locations. The Doctor Who team will return here for 1982's Earthshock, 1984's The Twin Dillema & 1987's Delta & the Bannermen. Four appearances may make it the most used quarry, and indeed exterior location, in Doctor Who!

331 The Three Doctors Episode Two

EPISODE: The Three Doctors Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 331
STORY NUMBER: 065
TRANSMITTED: 06 January 1973
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Three Doctors
Episode Format: 625 video

With the Third Doctor gone the creature quietens down allowing Benton & the Second Doctor to leave the Tardis. The Brigadier arrives believing that one of the Doctor's experiments has gone wrong and he's reverted to his earlier appearance. The Time Lords' power is being drained further by a black hole leading to the universe of anti-matter. The Third Doctor & Jo wake in a barren wasteland. While they explore they are followed by one of the creatures that attacked UNIT HQ. The Second Doctor works out that the creature at UNIT HQ is made of anti matter and tries to contain it. The Third Doctor & Jo find a number of items that had vanished from their world including Bessie. The Second Doctor finishes building a containment device but is called away leaving Benton in charge of the equipment. However the creature reacts when he throws his chewing gum wrapper at it growing stronger as Benton increases the containment field forcing the Second Doctor, Benton and, at long last, The Brigadier into the Tardis. Jo & the Third Doctor find Doctor Tyler in the wasteland. They explain to him that they are at the other end of the lightstreak on his photographic plates on a stable world of anti matter within the black hole. The Doctor speculates they have been kidnapped but by who? Their kidnapper is observing them and sends the Gellguard creatures to fetch them. The Doctor works out what he's done and tries to find his recorder to help him think. The Third Doctor, Jo & Doctor Tyler are brought to a palace in the wasteland. Doctor Tyler attempts to escape but is swiftly recaptured. The Second Doctor puts the Brigadier in touch with Corporal Palmer who reports UNIT HQ is surrounded. The First Doctor appears on the monitor and advises the Second to turn the Tardis forcefield off. Tyler wonders how they survive, as positive matter, in the anti-matter world without causing a massive explosion. The Third Doctor tells them that they have been converted to anti-matter. The Second Doctor obeys the First, deactivating the Tardis forcefield. The Gellguards surrounding UNIT HQ vanish, and then so does the building which we see being dragged through the black hole.

Oh that was fab. Completely driven for me by Second Doctor's reunion & interaction with the Brigadier as the Brigadier refuses to believe the Doctor's story, and won't even listen to Benton, coming up with his own version of events. I'd say he's sticking his head in the sand but we really want to be saving the euphemism for what he does in the next episode! The Second Doctor continues the series occasional digs at the medium it's part of with the superb

Keep it confused, feed it with useless information..... I wonder if I have a television set handy?

Then as an added bonus he gets the Brigadier's radio working by whacking it on the Tardis console years before a "delicate technical adjustment" became common practice in the computer support profession! Anyone in any doubt that Doctor Tyler's escape attempt is padding out a slightly under running episode is put right by his "that was a bit of a waste of time wasn't it?" comment on his recapture.

Jon Pertwee's third & fourth season, Doctor Who's ninth & tenth, appear on screen in this order, which is the order I've been watching them:

Season 9

Day Of The Daleks
The Curse Of Peladon
The Sea Devils
The Mutants
The Time Monster

Season 10

The Three Doctors
Carnival Of Monsters
Frontier In Space
Planet Of The Daleks
The Green Death


However this story was produced out of sequence to allow for the availability of Patrick Troughton, as ever much in demand. The following story, The Carnival of Monsters, was filmed first at the end of the series ninth season followed by the story after that, The Frontier in Space, before The Three Doctors was produced. This isn't the first time a story has been filmed out of sequence, in fact it had happened the previous year for the Sea Devils. The production order for these two season is thus:

Recording Block Nine

KKK: Day Of The Daleks
LLL: The Sea Devils
MMM: The Curse Of Peladon
NNN: The Mutants
OOO: The Time Monster
PPP: Carnival Of Monsters

Recording Block Ten

QQQ: Frontier In Space
RRR: The Three Doctors
SSS: Planet Of The Daleks
TTT: The Green Death
UUU: The Time Warrior

The final story of this block, filmed in May 1973, was held over for the Eleventh season, mainly filmed from September 1972 onwards and broadcast from mid December 1973 onwards.

Note the three letter codes. Each production, even the earliest without overall story titles has a code. Unearthly Child is A, The Daleks is B etc through to story Z The Gunfighters. We then start again with AA for the Savages, BB for the War Machines through to ZZ for, coincidentally, Troughton's last story the War Games. Pertwee's first story Spearhead from space is AAA and off we go again.

The intention was that the Second Doctor would be accompanied by Jamie but actor Frazer Hines was committed to work on Emerdale Farm where he played Joe Sugden. It would seem his role is largely filled by what Sergeant Benton does in this story which might be worth remembering when you watch the next episode. Corporal Palmer, who appears in the first two episodes, probably fulfils the function Benton would have had. Meanwhile Richard Franklin, as Captain Yates, is absent from an Earth bound UNIT story for the first time since his debut. At the time he was involved in a theatre production, which was known about quite some distance in advance. However it's worth imagining what a nice touch it would be if he was in charge of the troops left defending UNIT HQ at the end of this second episode!

The DVD of this story has an authoring error at the end of this episode which repeats a shot towards the end causing audio & video to become out of sync - it's the UNIT soldier staring at the departed UNIT HQ meaning the title crash in slightly too early. Some fans have been up in arms over this for years but it's only now with very precise instructions that I've been able to spot it..... and I don't think it matters one bit. There's far worse DVD faults out there but fixing this has contributed too this story being included in the Revisitations volume 3 DVD set with Tomb of the Cybermen and Robots of Death.

330 The Three Doctors Episode One

EPISODE: The Three Doctors Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 330
STORY NUMBER: 065
TRANSMITTED: 30 December 1972
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Three Doctors
Episode Format: 625 video

For no obvious reason it's been a few years since I last saw the Three Doctors....

At the Minsbridge Wildlife Sanctuary, Warden Arthur Ollis is guarding a crashed experimental balloon. Doctor Tyler arrives to collect his equipment, speaking to Mrs Ollis and waving at her husband as he parks. However there is a crackling and Mr Ollis vanishes before Doctor Tyler reaches him. A concerned Doctor Tyler calls UNIT. He explains to the Brigadier, Doctor & Jo what has happened and that his cosmic ray monitoring device has been producing odd results. He's left to develop the latest results but when he opens the box containing the device he vanishes and a glowing substance emerges. Coming out of the drains it attacks a returning Doctor & Jo, who've been to see the crash site & Mrs Ollis, causing Bessie to vanish. They shelter inside UNIT HQ. The Doctor finds the developed photographic plate from the device which Doctor Tyler had been working on. On it is a distorted picture of the missing Mr Ollis. The Doctor concludes that the thing is hunting him and has taken first Ollis, then Tyler and finally Bessie by mistake. Blobby clawed creatures appear and attack UNIT HQ. The Brigadier orders a withdrawal but Sergeant Benton is trapped in the lab with the Doctor & Jo when the original thing returns. They retreat into the Tardis. Trapped, the Doctor sends an SOS to the Time Lords..... The Time Lords, however, are suffering a massive power drain on their resources. Unable to help him directly they summon the Second Doctor. Our Doctor, the Third, hears a materialisation noise and finds a recorder moments before the Second Doctor appears, whom Sergeant Benton recognises from The Cyberman Invasion. The Third Doctor telepathically explains situation to the Second. They argue, and the Time Lords decide to send the First Doctor to supervise. He becomes trapped in the space time vortex but appears on the monitor screen advising them that the thing is a space time bridge and they should cross it. Tossing a coin to decide who gets to go, the Third doctor leaves the Tardis, pursued by Jo and they vanish.

There's some good stuff in here. It seems like it's a fairly standard Doctor Who story until the moment when the Second Doctor arrives and acts everyone else, his successor included, completely off the screen. There's an energy to him. Then the first pops up, distant, removed but with a better grasp of the situation than either of his successors. Fabulous. I saw this scene many many years ago on Blue Peter (1981 or earlier) and watched it trying to figure out which of the men I could see on screen was the Doctor.... Little did I know! Jo's there and she's having problems working it out as we see by her quoting the Beatles song I am the Walrus, released five years prior to this story but two years after the Beatles appearance in The Chase. The Doctor's got a new lab in this story, replacing the old brick one, last seen in Day of the Daleks, and this seems likely connected to a move for UNIT HQ at some point.. The Unit headquarters we see here appears to be out in the country whereas the older one, seen during the first few Pertwee years might of been in central London. Both of the Unit regulars in this story, Mike Yates being absent, get some fine stuff to do starting with the famous "Liberty Hall" from the Brigadier realising the Doctor's just given a scientist he met five minutes previously the run of the place. Benton's reaction to the inside of the Tardis is fabulous though, refusing to say that it's bigger on the inside because it's obvious and nothing to do with the Doctor surprises him any more. Interestingly the Brigadier who hasn't been shown to go into the Tardis on the screen yet: His sergeant gets there first. There's an odd fluff by Jon Pertwee in this episode: Everyone else refers to Tyler as Doctor Tyler yet he calls him by the more senior academic rank of Professor.

The story put about for several years was that the genesis for the Three Doctors came about when William Hartnell stuck his head round the Doctor Who production office door while looking for work at the BBC. In fact Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks had had many letters over the years wanting a multi Doctor team up so decided to celebrate the program's tenth anniversary by doing so. The anniversary itself was still nearly a year away but this was the start of the show's tenth season so..... They rang Hartnell at home and asked him to take part and he agreed. However his health wasn't good suffering from a condition called arteriosclerosis which limited what he could do. His wife rang Barry Letts, concerned at what her husband had agreed to do and the script was crafted accordingly. In the event Hartnell's appearances are limited to him appearing on the monitor screen where he's sat in a chair and reading his lines off of cue cards but somehow this ends a remote gravitas to his performance. He, Troughton & Pertwee are in the same place just once: for the publicity session and cover photograph for The Radio Times. Barry Letts had learnt from his experience with the Terror of the Autons Radio Times cover, featuring Roger Delgado's Master in the middle which earned the show's star's wrath, and had a quiet word with the photographer placing Pertwee in the centre of the picture.

The majority of the locations used in this story feature in this episode with most found near Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire where filming took place between 7-9 November 1972. The UNIT HQ scenes were filmed at Denham Manor on the 10th November 1972. The same location serves as UNIT HQ over ten years later for the Five Doctors, the 20th anniversary story.

329 The Time Monster Episode Six

EPISODE: The Time Monster Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 329
STORY NUMBER: 064
TRANSMITTED: 24 June 1972
WRITER: Robert Sloman (and Barry Letts uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Myths & Legends: The Time Monster, Underworld & The Horns of the Nimon
Episode Format: 625 low band video colour restored using 525 ntsc video

The Doctor rescues Jo from the Minotaur but returning to the surface they find Atlantis ruled by the Master who summons Kronos, destroying Atlantis. The Master takes Jo prisoner and flees in his Tardis, but the Doctor Time Rams it with his own Tardis to stop him escaping with the crystal to control Kronos. Kronos itself, now back in it's right mind and freed from the crystal's control, saves both Tardis and intends to punish the Master, but he manages to escape. The Doctor & Jo return to Earth where Stuart & Ruth unfreeze the Unit troops and return a now naked Sergeant Benton to adulthood.

Oh it's over. Thank the Lord! Look I may have had a bad couple of days writing this but I've found the end of the story, and indeed the later half of this season quite dreadful. Sorry, it's done nothing for me. The best bits were ripped off from the Dæmons: as in the last episode of that story Jo tries to sacrifice herself here completing the time ram when the Doctor hesitates. And to top it off the monster of the title destroys Atlantis just as Azal claimed in the Dæmons! I know the Time Monster was a replacement for an earlier storyline, Daleks in London, which was junked when Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks decided to use the Daleks in Day of the Daleks but still.... Although the end of the broadcast ninth season of Doctor Who, production of Doctor Who continued filming a serial for the tenth season, The Carnival of Monsters. But before that would be shown a very special story would launch the 10th season.

All six episodes of the Time Monster were found in the BBC Enterprises holdings in 1978 on Black & White film. Later, in 1981, colour 525 line NTSC broadcast video tapes of the entire series were returned from Canada in 1981. In 1987 it was discovered that the BBC held a "low band" (basically B&W) 625 line video tape on episode 6 of the Time Monster. Labelling indicated that it had been made 1st December 1972, almost certainly for training purposes. Using the same technique that had married B&W film with the colour from off air video tapes Restoration Team member Paul Vanezies built a new version of episode 6 matching the luminance from the BBC's 625 line b&2 tape with the chroma information from the NTSC 525 line tape to produce a new, near perfect, 625 line colour version. The DVD contains a short feature showing this restoration work and that performed on the rest of the serial.

The Time Monster was novelised by Terrance Dicks in 1986. I loved the book when I read it aged 13. It was released on Video in November 2001 as part of The Master tin with Colony in Space. It was released on DVD in March 2010 Doctor Who - Myths & Legends along with Underworld & The Horns of the Nimon, two other stories with ancient Greek influences.

328 The Time Monster Episode Five

EPISODE: The Time Monster Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 328
STORY NUMBER: 064
TRANSMITTED: 17 June 1972
WRITER: Robert Sloman
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Myths & Legends: The Time Monster, Underworld & The Horns of the Nimon
Episode Format: 525 video RSC

The Doctor telepathically contacts Jo and guides her on using the Tardis to retrieve him from the Time Vortex. The Master arrives at Atlantis and attempts to insinuate himself into the royal court. King Dalios dismisses him but Queen Galleia is taken with him. The Doctor & Jo also arrive in Atlantis and find favour with King Dalios. Jo is taken to Queen Galleia but observes her conspiring with the Master. High priest Krasis has her thrown into the vault under the temple where the Minotaur dwells protecting the crystal.

I'm despairing. This story is doing nothing for me and barely holding my attention. Awful.

Famed Hammer Films star Ingrid Pitt plays Queen Galleia, in a costume that's barely keeping her cleavage under control. She'll be back some years later in Warriors of the Deep as Doctor Solow. Her servant, Lakis, is played by Susan Penhaligon who is someone I know more as a name rather than her acting career. One of the Atlanteans, Miseus, is played by Michael Walker who was a Radar Operator in The Claws of Axos while one of the guards is Melville Jones who'll return as a Cyberman in Revenge of the Cybermen. Three years into Pertwee and no Cybermen! Finally, and most famously for science fiction fans, the Minotaur is played by Dave Prowse, famous as the body, but not the voice, of Darth Vader and also as the Green Cross Code Man during the 70s. Another Green Cross Code film featuring the acronym SPLINK was hosted by Jon Pertwee!

327 The Time Monster Episode Four

EPISODE: The Time Monster Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 327
STORY NUMBER: 064
TRANSMITTED: 10 June 1972
WRITER: Robert Sloman
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Myths & Legends: The Time Monster, Underworld & The Horns of the Nimon
Episode Format: 525 video RSC

Yates & his men are injured by an explosion: a local farmer recalls a doodlebug exploding on the same spot in 1944. The Tardis is dragged out the mud by a tractor. The Doctor locks his Tardis onto the Master and dematerialises. The Doctor materialises round the Master's Tardis by accident, but also inside it. The Master uses the crystal to freeze the approaching Unit forces in time. Benton, Stuart & Ruth break into the lab holding the Master at gunpoint before he escapes fleeing into the Tardis and dematerialising. Discovering the frozen Unit troops they decide to turn the transmitter off but it doesn't unfreeze the troops. Trying to unfreeze the troops Stuart & Ruth accidentally de-age Benton to babyhood. The Doctor leaves his Tardis to talk to the Master who summons Kronos which consumes him taking him into the time vortex into which the Master casts the Doctor's Tardis containing Jo Grant.....

Deary Lord I'm struggling with this story. This episode in particular was dire. Lots of standing round talking when we could have just cut to the chase and gone straight to Atlantis. I know lots of people love the exchanges between the Master & the Doctor but I just found it juvenile and a waster of time.

Still it gives us a good look at the new Tardis set in both it's incarnations doubling as the Doctor & Master's Tardis. They're shot with the doors at different ends of the set and with different Time Rotors in place: The Master's looks uncannily like a chocolate fountain! It's been described as the "Washing up bowl" Tardis set due to the three dimensional shape of the roundels and you can see why. One of the roundels holds the Tardis scanner screen, done using CSO, which features heavily in this episode. Unfortunately when the Doctor enters the Tardis you can see the brief woodland set, built outside for background, through the walls. This is the only appearance of this Tardis set: it was damaged in storage and not used again.

Things Philip learnt from this Doctor Who episode (albeit many years ago): What a Coccyx is.

George Lee, who appears in this episode as a Farmworker, was in the opening third Doctor story the Spearhead from Space as Corporal Forbes, the soldier who sends the poacher on his way and is in charge of the party that shoot the Doctor.

This episode is actually a significant milestone: It's the last episode with the entire "UNIT family" in. Richard Franklin is absent from the rest of this story and while Roger Delgado returns for one more appearance after this in Frontier in Space, UNIT do not feature in that story. In fact the last time they were all in the studio together was for recording of episodes 1 & 2, Franklin not being required for other studio blocks and only appearing on location during episodes 3 & 4.