Doctor Who (10 page)

The epic story ends with the Doctor and Jamie escaping as the three peaceful Daleks rebel against the Emperor, sacrificing themselves as their city is destroyed. During the chaos, Professor Waterfield is killed, leaving his daughter Victoria an orphan. The Doctor welcomes her aboard the TARDIS and the season ends with them all leaving, wondering if this is truly the end of the Dalek Empire. It would be five years before the monsters were seen again.

Deborah Watling played Victoria, a sweet girl longing for a new home. The Doctor was now traveling with two people who predated the twentieth century, making it a reversal of the team of Steven and Vicki. In the fifth season's premiere story, “Tomb of the Cybermen” (1967), considered by
many to be Troughton's finest adventure, Victoria brought out a softer side of the Second Doctor when they both spoke of remembering the families they had lost.

Deborah Watling (Victoria) at Gallifrey One 2013

As viewers saw romance developing between Barbara and Ian and then Ben and Polly, they also saw an emerging relationship between Jamie and Victoria. But Victoria wasn't suited for TARDIS travel and left in the 1968 story “Fury from the Deep,” despite Jamie's protests.

In the final story of season five, “The Wheel in Space,” the Doctor and Jamie meet and recruit Zoe Heriot, a young twenty-first-century scientist whose math skills seem to trump the Doctor's. Trained to listen only to logic, her imagination and understanding of risk are sorely lacking, so she still has much to learn. Wendy Padbury played Zoe, and in later years, as a theatrical agent, she represented Nicholas Courtney, Mark Strickson, and Colin Baker. She's also credited for helping to discover an actor at the National Youth Theater named Matt Smith.

Along with introducing Zoe, the fifth season is notable for the story “The Web of Fear.” Along with bringing back the Great Intelligence, it
featured the return of actor Nicholas Courtney, now playing Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, a military man initially skeptical of the existence of aliens but who comes to see the truth and learns to trust the Doctor. No one realized at the time just how big a role Lethbridge-Stewart would become.

Wrapping Things Up

Despite well-received characters and imaginative stories, including a journey to the Land of Fiction, there were increasing reports of scriptwriting problems, and viewing figures were falling noticeably. The members of the cast enjoyed working with one another, lightening the mood with practical jokes on occasion, but the shooting schedule exhausted them more and more, and rehearsal time reduced to just about nil.

The BBC decided to film the seventh season in color, but they didn't increase the production budget. This development worried producer Peter Bryant and Derrick Sherwin, who had become coproducer. The expense of monsters and special effects was becoming harder to handle now that the show didn't have historical adventures to buffer costs between visits to alien worlds.

Sherwin came up with the idea that the seventh season be Earth-bound to save money on location shoots, costumes, and set constructions, adding that this would also make the stories easier for the audience to relate to. The Doctor would be exiled to Earth and paired with a military organization, ensuring a constant supply of action and drama.

Bryant and Sherwin discussed this new direction with script editor Terrance Dicks, and they decided this military organization would be led by Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. To set things up, Lethbridge-Stewart appears again in the sixth season story “The Invasion,” explaining that he's been promoted to brigadier and now heads the UK branch of UNIT—the United Nations Intelligence Task force. While the public believes UNIT to be intelligence gatherers, they actually deal with strange menaces and alien attacks. Tie-in media later suggested that Lethbridge-Stewart himself had spearheaded the creation of the organization after his first adventure with the Doctor.

Now, when the Doctor met up with UNIT during his exile, the familiarity of the organization would help ease fans into the new era. But while the creative team was setting the stage for the seventh season, Troughton decided that three years was a good run as the Doctor and staying longer increased the risk of typecasting. He spoke with Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury, and all three decided to leave together at the end of the sixth season. Troughton later said that he also worried that
Doctor Who
was running its course as a program.

Along with starting the Doctor's exile, the producers decided to mark the end of Troughton's run with a story that finally revealed some secrets about the hero and his home planet.

“I was bored . . .”

When one of the last two stories of the sixth season had to be scrapped, the Second Doctor's final tale, “The War Games,” wound up extending into a ten-episode adventure. (It also featured Patrick Troughton's son David in the minor role of Private Moor.) The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe land in what seems to be World War I, but they find soldiers from many other wars of Earth's history, all separated into different zones of this strange place where time is corrupted. A group of aliens has caused this chaos for their own ends, led by a man called the War Lord. One of the villains is a strange scientist called the War Chief, who has made his colleagues limited time travel units called SIDRATs—a backward play on TARDIS.

When the Doctor and War Chief lay eyes on each other, there is instant recognition. Later, the War Chief confronts the hero and remarks, “You may have changed your appearance, but I know who you are.” This encounter gives us the first time since the Monk's appearance in January 1966 that we meet another of the Doctor's people. The conversation between the two alien scientists revealed yet more.

 

DOCTOR:
“I had every right to leave.”

WAR CHIEF:
“Stealing a TARDIS. Oh, I'm not criticizing you. We're both two of a kind.”

DOCTOR:
“We most certainly are not.”

WAR CHIEF:
“We were both Time Lords. We both decided to leave our race.”

DOCTOR:
“I have reasons of my own.”

WAR CHIEF:
“Just as I have.”

DOCTOR:
“Your reasons are only too obvious. Power.”

 

It had taken six years, but now we finally knew the name of the Doctor's people: Time Lords. And at last, Newman's idea that the Doctor had stolen the TARDIS finally made it on-screen. As the story continues, the Doctor knows he can't fix this situation on his own. Realizing what the hero intends, the War Chief panics and warns him that they will both be punished by the Time Lords. The Doctor ignores this, transmitting a telepathic message into a cube that he sends off into space. He then tells Jamie and Zoe to hurry. He can't be there when his people arrive.

The War Chief is killed by his colleagues, and the Doctor races to the TARDIS, but this time there's no escape. The Time Lords warp time around them and seize control of the Doctor's ship, forcing him to return to his home planet. He materializes in a TARDIS docking bay, surrounded by time ships not bothering to disguise their outer shells.

Jamie and Zoe don't understand why the Doctor fears his own people, and he finally explains. Time Lords hardly ever use their great power and technology, usually choosing only to observe the universe from afar. That wasn't enough for the Doctor. “I was bored,” he says. So he stole a TARDIS and left. But the Time Lords don't care for interfering in the development of other races, and, as the Doctor reluctantly admits, “I do tend to get involved with things.”

After removing the War Lord and his colleagues from existence, the Time Lords put the Doctor on trial. He argues that, while he has interfered, he has done so in positive ways and has helped to preserve life in the universe. Using telepathic screens, he displays the many monsters he has faced, including the time traveling Daleks. The Time Lords admit they have much to consider. Before passing sentence, they allow Jamie and Zoe to say goodbye to the Doctor. The humans are returned to the moment just after the Doctor recruited them. After they each say a heartfelt goodbye, we learn what the Doctor has already realized: The Time Lords will wipe their
memories. They will have no idea of the many adventures they shared nor of the strong friendships they developed.

The Doctor is criminal and yet has done good things. The Time Lords also note that the Doctor has a great interest in Earth, a planet which seems to come under threat often. So rather than execution, they sentence him to exile on Earth (perhaps as a form of community service, helping to protect the human race). His mind will be altered so he can't recall the secrets of the TARDIS and the ship will have its travel abilities removed. As part of the sentence, the Doctor will adopt a new body. To show they're not heartless, they offer him several possible new faces.

The hero stalls by protesting each face and the Time Lords grow weary. The room goes dark and we hear the Doctor cry out, “What are you doing? NO! STOP!” All fades to black, and so ends the show's sixth year. Six months will pass before we meet the Third Doctor.

Lost in Time

William Hartnell introduced us to the Doctor, the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the TARDIS. Patrick Troughton convinced us that it was all right to have multiple versions of the same hero, and introduced us to UNIT and the Time Lords. Together, they starred in 253 episodes during the first six years of
Doctor Who,
totaling fifty stories. Sadly, to date only twenty-three of these stories are preserved in their entirety.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the BBC and ITV had a regular practice of destroying and “junking” footage they saw no need to preserve, freeing up limited storage space. This affected many shows, including Sydney Newman's other creation
The Avengers.
Whovian and record producer Ian Levine was able to stop the junking of
Doctor Who
footage, and the wiping policy ended in 1978. Some Third Doctor episodes were missing, but over the years they were all recovered (though copies only existed in black and white). Unfortunately, Levine's efforts were too late to save most of the program's first six years. Because of
Doctor Who
's popularity and international broadcasts, several copies were found in different countries and in private collections, but the recovery has not been complete. To date, there are still 106 episodes missing from the First and Second Doctors, including ten full stories.

With other shows, it's bad enough to miss an entire episode, but since classic
Doctor Who
dealt in multi-episode arcs, this meant that many stories had gaps or were missing their final chapters. Out of Patrick Troughton's first two years as the Doctor, only one story “Tomb of the Cybermen” was preserved entirely, thanks to a copy found in Hong Kong in 1992.

But while episodes for many programs were lost entirely, the audio of all
Doctor Who
adventures was preserved because many fans recorded the sound off their television sets so they could listen again later and remember the story (as this was before reruns). These recordings were remastered by the fan-run group the Doctor Who Restoration Team, initially formed in 1992 to restore some of Jon Pertwee's episodes. The BBC converted the remastered soundtracks into audio plays released on CD, with an actor narrating what the audience couldn't see. Some of the missing episodes were presented on VHS by playing the audio reel while displaying photographic stills and recovered clips, with a ticker tape at the bottom describing the action. In recent DVD releases such as “The Reign of Terror,” “The Tenth Planet,” and “The Invasion,” the missing chapters have been animated.

For years, the BBC, the Doctor Who Restoration Team, and many fans have made efforts to locate copies of missing
Doctor Who
episodes, occasionally with success. These efforts have led to the complete restoration of eight stories that were previously incomplete or lost. The children's show
Blue Peter,
which has had a long association with promoting
Doctor Who
and counted Peter Purves as one of its early hosts, offered life-size Daleks to anyone who recovered a missing episode. In December 2012, the magazine
Radio Times
announced that it was on the hunt for the remaining missing footage, inviting readers to join the effort.

Time will tell if fans will one day have access to a complete library of classic
Doctor Who.

8

Time-Locked!

“I wouldn't like to have to order you, Doctor.”

“I wouldn't advise you to try.”

—Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and the Third Doctor, from “The Green Death” (1973)

 

In January 1970, the seventh season opened by reintroducing the audience to UNIT. In “Spearhead from Space,” Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart recruits scientist Dr. Liz Shaw, played by Caroline John—whose husband, Geoffrey Beevers, later played an incarnation of the Master. The Brig explains that aliens exist and are coming to Earth more often now that it's drawing attention to itself with radio transmissions and satellites (an idea the Tenth Doctor repeats in 2005's “The Christmas Invasion”). Before he can convince Dr. Shaw, though, Lethbridge-Stewart discovers that the Doctor has returned, with a new face and gaps in his memory.

After the soldier and the scientist stop another alien threat, ­Lethbridge-Stewart asks if he can rely on the Doctor's continued help. The Doctor agrees to act as UNIT's scientific advisor, “Dr. John Smith.” In exchange, he wants to use UNIT's labs and resources, hoping he can repair the TARDIS despite his memory gaps. Also, he has grown quite fond of an old roadster during this latest adventure, and now wants a car of his own. The deal is struck and a new era of
Doctor Who
begins.

Though Terrance Dicks remained as script editor, Bryant had left as producer just before “The War Games.” Sherwin produced that story and “Spearhead from Space” but then left, turning the reins over to Barry Letts. The Third Doctor became a true product of the collaboration between Letts and Dicks, though sometimes they disagreed on the character. Letts enjoyed utilizing character flaws to drive the drama, whereas Dicks wanted to highlight the Doctor's heroism. The man who made it work in the end was actor Jon Pertwee.

Growing up, Pertwee was expelled repeatedly from schools for his behavior. At the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he was accused of writing about tutors and teachers on bathroom walls and was expelled finally for his attitude. Pertwee joined the Royal Navy and served as a naval intelligence operative during World War II, reporting directly to Churchill and working alongside Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels. After the war, Pertwee became a character actor and comedian, often performing on radio.

Hearing that Troughton was leaving the show, Pertwee suggested his agent look into the role, and was surprised to learn his name was already on a short list of candidates. When first choice Ron Moody turned down the part, Peter Bryant approached Pertwee, explaining the show's new direction: more James Bond than the Wizard of Oz. In an interview for the
Jon Pertwee Fan Club News
(1975), Pertwee explained: “I asked Shaun Sutton, Head of Drama at the BBC and an old friend of mine, how he wanted me to play [the Third Doctor]. He said, ‘Well, as you.'”

In this incarnation, the Doctor becomes quite the gadget man, cobbling together devices to sense time-field disturbances or sedate dinosaurs. He alters the sonic screwdriver to have more uses, such as measuring for radiation, scanning for alarm systems and traps, and acting as a hypnotic aid. His Edwardian roadster, affectionately called “Bessie,” is modified with extra features and increased speed. Though William Hartnell's dear departed aunt shared the name Bessie, it seems unlikely to be more than a coincidence, as the creative team of the time didn't know the actor well, it now having been over three years since he'd left.

Costume designer Christine Rawlins deliberately went for a very different look to contrast Pertwee from the previous Doctors, seeing him as an elegant, romantic adventurer who might have left a dinner party early to stop alien invaders. Pertwee approved of the direction, and so the Third Doctor wore bright frilly shirts and colorful velvet coats, assuming the Edwardian revival fashions of Carnaby Street and Kings Road that had infiltrated the fashion mainstream in the 1960s. As a result, some fans nicknamed him the Dandy Doctor. Not averse to wearing capes from time to time, he seemed a gentleman superhero.

Frustrated by his exile, the Third Doctor was as short-tempered as his first incarnation, snapping at people when they questioned him, criticizing
planet Earth as an annoyance to tolerate. This impatience also affected how he confronted danger. When attackers proved immune to reason, the Third Doctor disarmed them through martial arts, claiming he had mastered Venusian aikido, occasionally calling it Venusian karate. (Earth's form of aikido was introduced to Britain in 1955 and karate began its popularity there in 1965).

The UNIT Family

Derrick Sherwin said that UNIT was partly created in response to how taking on most of the show's lines had unduly exhausted Troughton. To avoid this with Jon Pertwee, UNIT included the Brigadier, the jocular Captain Mike Yates (played by Richard Franklin), the sweet and deferential Sergeant Benton (played by John Levene), and Liz Shaw.

Like Zoe, Shaw was a scientist, but she was actually paid to act as the Doctor's assistant. While the character came to appreciate the Doctor's intellect, Shaw didn't care for having her beliefs constantly put into doubt by his claims of alien life forms and advanced technology. Writers created Dr. Shaw as a contrast to the female companions of the past few years, criticized by some as weak characters serving primarily to ask questions and fall into danger. Terrance Dicks thought Liz's confident disposition made for interesting drama with the Doctor, though some viewers found her unnecessarily argumentative. Caroline John later joked that she had prepared for the role by learning many scientific concepts and terms only to discover that she'd done more research than the writers themselves.

Along with Liz, the character who spent the most time with the Third Doctor was the Brigadier. The two clashed often in how they approached matters, yet did take time to listen to one another and respected each other's experience. A major rift occurred in the story “Doctor Who and the Silurians,” when a tribe of reptilian humanoids decided to wage war on humanity. The Doctor failed to broker peace, so Lethbridge-Stewart had the tribe bombed. The Doctor was appalled but later came to trust the Brig again, the two becoming friends who enjoyed an odd camaraderie. When the soldier saved the Doctor's life, he complained that the man always
waited until the “nick of time,” prompting the Brig to smile and remark, “I'm happy to see you too, Doctor.”

Since viewership had been declining, producers understood that the BBC would cancel the program if this seventh season didn't do well. But the new premise succeeded, not only bringing some old fans back to the fold but also attracting new viewers who preferred an action scientist with military backing over a strange homeless traveler in an unreliable ship. Not everyone cared for these changes, though. Verity Lambert often said that having the Third Doctor recognized by humans as an authority and trusted advisor to military forces was a mistake. In the commentary for “The Time Meddler,” she explained: “I think the whole thing about
Doctor Who
and one of the things why kids really responded to him is he was completely anti-establishment, and they could actually relate to the fact that . . . he went his own way.”

Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston later recalled seeing this Doctor as a young child and not caring for what an authority figure he seemed to be.

But the Third Doctor struck a chord with many, as evidenced by the viewership, and writer Dan Abnett argues that this unusual new premise is what made Pertwee's incarnation so interesting. As he sees it, “The Third Doctor was given authority and a UNIT ID, but he was still someone who thought people should've listened to him more anyway. He was working with the military but it was under protest. He argued against the Brigadier and UNIT policies. Seeing him angry at being in a situation he didn't want to be in and couldn't escape, but still be able to put his issues aside and save the day when he had to, that made him a proper hero to me. He wanted to be anywhere but Earth sometimes but he'd still risk his life to save it. And his humor was different from the first two Doctors, but it was still there.”

A phrase that has become associated with the Third Doctor is “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.” In actuality, he only said this line twice on-screen, though he did often solve problems by reversing a device's polarity in some fashion. As Pertwee disliked technobabble, he had complimented Terrance Dicks on writing the phrasing, thinking it sounded good and scientific enough without being complicated. Pertwee made sure to use the line again when he reprised his role for the 1989 UK touring stage play
Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure.
When Sixth Doctor Colin Baker
later took over the role, the line was altered to say “Reverse the linearity of the proton flow.”

The phrase has been referenced in other science fiction franchises. In 2000, a
Fantastic Four
comic used it, only for a child in the story to point out that neutrons have no polarity.

A New Assistant

Producer Barry Letts didn't like having an opinionated adult as the Doctor's aide. Caroline John's contract was not renewed and in the eighth season's premiere story, “Terror of the Autons,” the Brigadier informs the Doctor that Shaw asked to be reassigned, feeling she can be more valuable elsewhere. Lethbridge-Stewart assigns a new assistant, young Jo Grant, skilled in lock picking, self-defense, and piloting helicopters. Jo remained for three more seasons.

Katy Manning, who played Jo Grant, had begun her television career just the year before. She was quickly welcomed by Pertwee and their rapport was clear on-screen. Though nearsighted, Manning didn't tell anyone and didn't wear glasses on set. During filming one day, she ran across a field and crashed into a tree, knocking herself unconscious. From then on, the Doctor usually held Jo's hand whenever they ran across a field.

Jo wore her heart on her sleeve and her empathy helped bring the Doctor back to a softer disposition. Though she occasionally joked about being a bad student, she showed cleverness on several occasions and understood alien science better than the Brigadier. Nevertheless, some criticized the character for stepping backward in the evolution of the female companion.

Temporary Escapes

“If I could leave, I would, if only to get away from people like you. And your petty obsessions!”

—Third Doctor, from “The Claws of Axos” (1971)

 

Although he didn't wish to end the Doctor's exile too soon, Barry Letts worried that having only UNIT stories each season risked predictability and
could veer too far from the original idea of an alien traveler. As a result, the eighth and ninth seasons involved the Doctor occasionally leaving Earth either because he forced the TARDIS into an uncontrolled test flight, or the Time Lords sent him on a mission. This could explain why the Time Lords sent him to Earth in exile yet allowed him to keep his time ship rather than just stranding him completely. The Doctor didn't appreciate this treatment, saying he felt like a “galactic yo-yo.”

But Jo Grant's debut story also introduced a new recurring enemy who would keep him quite busy. Many had compared the odd friendship of the Doctor and the Brigadier to that of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Now, the Doctor would meet his Moriarty.