Doctor Who The Web of Fear DVD Review

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2nd Doctor, Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, Deborah Watling, Doctor Who, Frazer Hines, Great Intelligence, Jamie McCrimmon, London Undergound, Nicholas Courtney, Patrick Troughton, Professor Travers, Season Five, The Web of Fear, Victoria Waterfield, Yeti

The Web of Fear

Review by Paul Bowler

Following Salamander’s demise and narrowly escaping from a giant web in space, the TARDIS materialises in the London Underground, where the tunnels have become infested with pulsating webs and the Great Intelligence’s fearsome robotic Yeti. The Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Jamie, (Frazer Hines), and Victoria (Deborah Watling) are reunited with Professor Travers (Jack Watling), who they met forty years ago in the Himalayas. They discover Travers’ experiments with a control sphere must have accidentally reactivated the Yeti he brought back from Tibet in 1935, providing the Great Intelligence with another chance to invade Earth.

As the web-fungus begins to fill the underground tunnels the Doctor joins forces with the Army, led by Captain Knight (Ralph Watson), and then later Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), to fight the Yeti – unaware that someone in their midst has been possessed by the Intelligence. The Doctor and his friends are captured by the Yeti and taken to the Great Intelligence’s lair, where the Intelligence plans to drain all of the Doctor’s knowledge from his mind.

The Doctor manages to sabotage the device so it will enable him to drain Intelligence’s mind instead, but before he can implement his plan, the Doctor’s companion’s rescue him and the Great Intelligence is sent screaming back into the dark void from whence it came. After saying their farewells, the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria are heading back to the Covent Garden station, when the Doctor suddenly remembers the trains could start running again soon, so they all quickly hurry off down the tunnel to reach the TARDIS…

The Web of Fear (1968) is the fifth story from Season Five, written by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, this adventure features Patrick Troughton at the height of his tenure as the Doctor.  The announcement in October 2013 that four of the five missing episodes from The Web of Fear – together with The Enemy of the World – had been discovered by Philip Morris in Nigeria, with their subsequent return to the BBC and immediate release on iTunes, made the 50^th Anniversary celebrations of Doctor Who even more special. This new DVD release from BBC Worldwide is one that few of us could ever have dreamed of owning back when the range was launched fifteen years ago, so it is perhaps fitting then that such a revered classic from Season Five as The Web of Fear should become the final regular release from the Doctor Who DVD range – before the range itself concludes on October 26th 2015 with the long-awaited release of The Underwater Menace.

Needless to say, Patrick Troughton is magnificent in The Web of Fear. In a performance that shifts effortlessly between the lighter, more comic moments, and brooding intensity as the Doctor contemplates the Intelligence’s plans, Troughton’s presence seems to permeate nearly every aspect of the story – even when he is absent during second episode, only featuring momentarily in the reprise for the previous episode, his Doctor presides over this web of intrigue; causing subtle ripples that spread outwards to influence everything around him.

The camaraderie between this TARDIS crew is a joy to behold. Jamie is as resourceful as ever, helping close the TARDIS doors to save the Doctor and Victoria from suffering the same fate as Salamander, and being sucked into the time vortex. Following this exciting opening there is a wonderful scene were Jamie and Victoria tease the Doctor about his ability to control the TARDIS. Once they escape the web in space and materialise in Covent Garden tube station we are treated to a typical exchange between the Doctor and Victoria, where she asks if it’s safe to venture outside, to which the Doctor assures her wryly that he shouldn’t think so for a moment.

Frazer Hines has some great scenes in this story, Jamie’s previous encounter with the Great Intelligence proves extremely useful, he knows about Intelligence’s pyramid devices, helps the soldiers when they confront the Yeti in the tunnels, and looks after Victoria when the Doctor goes missing following the explosion at Charing Cross. Deborah Watling has plenty to do as well, in this, her penultimate adventure as Victoria Waterfield; her character has become a little more accustomed to her adventures in time and space by this story, with Victoria bravely wandering into the tunnels alone at one point in search of the Doctor and Jamie.

The Web of Fear is a near perfect fusion of storytelling and direction. With its dark and foreboding tunnels, eerie, web shrouded atmosphere, and the sure knowledge that something terrible is lurking in the darkness, ready to strike at any moment, certainly makes The Web of Fear one of the most suspenseful stories of this era. With this sequel to The Abominable Snowmen (1967), writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln ensure the Yeti make triumphant return in The Web of Fear, cleverly moving the Yeti from the bleak wilderness of the Himalayas and placing them in the more familiar setting of the London Underground, Haisman and Lincoln instantly made the creatures seem even more menacing than ever before.

The Yeti have also been given an upgrade of sorts for their second appearance, slimmer, and with the addition of two bright glowing eyes, they now wield guns that fire lethal streams of webbing, and each attack is accompanied by a distinctive roar that is both terrifying and primal in its intensity. The effectiveness of these lumbering monsters is enhanced even further by the incredible sets, designed by David Myersough-Jones, whose stunning replicas of the stations and tunnels were so good that London Underground apparently complained to the BBC – mistakenly thinking they had filmed there without permission.

Deborah Watling’s father, Jack Watling, also returns as Professor Travers, heavily made up to look much older, his portrayal of the short tempered Professor is brilliant. It’s great to see Travers’ reaction when he is reunited with Jamie and Victoria, some forty years after their last adventure in the Himalayas and their observations about how he has aged is priceless. On his arrival at the armies Goodge Street underground HQ, the elderly Professor is confronted by the smarmy reporter Harold Chorley (Jon Rollason), and he promptly gives Chorley a suitably blunt and no-nonsense assessment of the crisis that has engulfed London when the journalist attempts to interview him. Tina Packer plays Travers’ daughter, Anne Travers, who arrives to help after the Yeti control sphere goes missing. Anne is an accomplished scientist in her own right, she doesn’t suffer fools lightly either, deftly subverting Captain Knight’s preconceptions of her by explaining her reasons for becoming a scientist with a cool sarcasm, and she is also swift to put Chorley in his place as well; making it clear in no uncertain terms that she has no time whatsoever for his “style” of reporting.

The Web of Fear is also something of a precursor to more contemporary Earth-based stories, with the Doctor working alongside the army as a scientific advisor, leading to the introduction of UNIT in The Invasion (1968), before the concept was fully embraced by the production team when the Doctor began his exile on Earth at the start of Season Seven – a format that would form the cornerstone of the 3^rd Doctor’s era.

The soldiers we meet in The Web of Fear are initially led by Captain Knight, played by Ralph Watson, then we have Staff Sgt. Arnold (Jack Wollgar), along with Corporal Lane (Rod Beacham), Corporal Blake (Richardson Morgan), Craftsman Weams (Stephen Whittaker), and Derek Pollitt as faint-hearted Driver Evans. This story also features John Levene’s second appearance in the series, this time as one of the Yeti. John Levene would of course eventually go on to play the role of Benton during the UNIT stories.

The Web of Fear also marks Nicholas Courtney’s first appearance as the Doctor’s long time friend Lethbridge-Stewart. Nicholas Courtney had previously appeared as Space Security Service Agent Bret Vyon in The Dalek Master Plan (1965) with William Hartnell. Its great to see Nicholas Courtney working with Patrick Troughton in this story, here as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, Courtney’s character appears midway through the story, in episode three, although his boots are actually seen in episode two (played by the unaccredited Maurice Brooks), and he quickly assumes command at Goodge Street HQ. The Colonel would soon be promoted to Brigadier for his next story, The Invasion, but here we get to see the genesis of his friendship with the Doctor. While Captain Knight is openly sceptical about the Doctor’s claims and his ability to travel in time and space, it’s fascinating to see how readily the Colonel accepts the Doctor’s explanation about the TARDIS, as well as the Time Lords hypothesis about the true nature of the Great Intelligence itself.

This atmospheric direction by Douglas Camfield is nothing short of superb; every exciting moment of suspense from the scripts is accentuated further by the impressive sets and the cast’s excellent performances. There are some brilliant Hammeresque touches as well, especially in the first episode, when the Yeti returns to life in Julius Silverstein’s (Frederick Schrecker) museum, where Camfield’s use of stock music composed by Bela Bartock elevates this scene into a sublime moment of gothic horror. The Web of Fear is one of those Doctor Who stories where everything seems to magically gel together, creating a seamless blend of sci-fi and horror. The effects of the web-fungus and the Yeti web guns are also chilling to behold, as soldiers fall screaming to the ground, their faces smothered by the deadly webbing, tunnels fill up with the bubbling web, and the fungus even creeps across the closing credits (except for episode six) in a writhing, pulsating mass of tendrils just like in the episodes themselves.

The Yeti attack at Covent Garden in episode four is another great highlight Douglas Camfield’s direction in The Web of Fear, were the Yeti strike (accompanied by the same incidental stock music used for the Cybemen) as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart leads his men in a mission to acquire the TARDIS. As they fight back against the impossible odds above ground, unaware Staff Sgt. Arnold and Corporal Lane have already succumbed to the web while trying to push the baggage trolley through the tunnel, they find themselves locked in a bitter fight for survival as Yeti advance and mercilessly kill everyone on sight. Camfield makes the Yeti seem just as frightening in these daylight scenes as they are in the darkness of the underground tunnels, bullets, grenades, not even a bazooka seems to slow them down. Colonel Lethrbridge-Stewart is the only survivor from the massacre; he makes it back to Goodge Street HQ where he is horrified to learn that one of the missing Yeti models used to summon the creatures had secretly been planted in his pocket all along.

The chilling scenes with Professor Travers possessed by the Great Intelligence, flanked by Yeti guards, as it uses the Professors voice to confront the Doctor and the survivors, reveals the full extent of the Intelligence’s plans. After their previous encounter in Tibet, the Intelligence has observed the Doctor’s travels and set this trap so it can use a machine to drain the Doctor’s mind of all his knowledge. The fifth episode is extremely tense, with almost everyone now under suspicion as the Great Intelligence’s duplicitous servant, Victoria is taken hostage by the Yeti, then Staff Sgt. Arnold returns unexpectedly, and the fungus continues to close in on Goodge Street HQ as the Doctor and Anne race against time to complete the control box to use against the Yeti.

Although most of the story was originally wiped by the BBC, with only the first episode remaining in the BBC Archive, it would be many years before fans would get the chance to see this only surviving episode. While the novelisation of The Web of Fear by Terrance Dicks, published in 1976, vividly brought the story to life, it was only this, and the subsequent broadcast of episode one as part of  BSB’s Dr Who Weekend (1990) followed by the telesnaps  printed in Doctor Who Magazine, that served to provide any real impression of this classic story. The audio soundtrack (narrated by Frazer Hines) on the BBC Audio CD (2000) also gave more insight to this story. Episode one of The Web of Fear was finally released as part of The Reign of Terror Box Set on VHS (2003), and the episode debuted later on DVD as part of the Lost in Time Set (2005) along with a selection of clips from the missing episodes cut by the New Zealand Broadcasting Cooperation, yielding a tantalizing glimpse of the battle from episode four and the moment Anne Travers was surprised by a Yeti.

Just as with The Enemy of the World DVD, there are no extra features on The Web of Fear DVD, however the sheer quality of the restoration and the joy of seeing these classic episodes again more than make up for any lack of bonus features. The same collection of images and telesnaps used to reconstruct episode three for its iTunes release has also been employed to complete the story. Although I would have liked to have seen the missing third episode reconstructed with animation like the other incomplete stories previously released on DVD, the telesnaps and audio are more than adequate. Its just a shame Nicholas Courtney’s first onscreen appearance as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart is in this missing episode, while the telesnaps and audio document this scene well enough, it would have been a magical moment to actually witness the debut of this much-loved character and his historic first encounter with Patrick Troughton’s Doctor.

The final episode of The Web of Fear rattles along at a cracking pace. Travers, now released from the Intelligence’s control, is rounded up along with all the others by the Yeti and taken to the Piccadilly Circus station, where the true host of the alien Intelligence is finally revealed as Staff Sgt. Arnold. Unaware the Doctor has secretly reprogrammed one of the Yetis, the Intelligence believes it has won, but before the pyramid device can drain the Doctor’s mind Jamie orders the controlled Yeti to attack and pulls him free. The Doctor is livid, having sabotaged the helmet to drain the Intelligence into his own mind, he is robbed of a decisive victory and the action packed final moments culminate with the Great Intelligence being sent back into space. It is only during this last episode that The Web of Fear comes unstuck a little. The Intelligence’s control over Staff Sgt. Arnold’s lacks the sinister menace of Padmasambhava’s possession in The Abominable Snowmen, where the Intelligence spoke in a chilling whisper, and though the conclusion is exciting it does feels a little rushed – however these are only minor quibbles in what is otherwise a near flawless production.

The legacy of The Web of Fear has now encompassed the 11th Doctor’s (Matt Smith) era as well, with the Great Intelligence featuring in the 2012 Christmas Special: The Snowmen, voiced by Sir Ian McKellen, with Richard E Grant as the evil Dr Simeon, and Grant later returned as the intelligence in The Bells of St John (2013) and The Name of the Doctor (2013). Although the Yeti did not appear in these stories, the discovery of The Web of Fear showed how good they were, and it would be fantastic to see these classic monsters return again in the new series.l

The Web of Fear DVD is a fantastic example of Patrick Troughton’s era, and I’m sure this classic story will take pride of place in many collections. Season Five is often held in the highest regard as one of the very best, if not finest, seasons of Doctor Who ever made. The Web of Fear exemplifies the best qualities of the base under siege format that became so synonymous of this era of monsters, with exciting scripts, and excellent direction; it also featured some of the highest levels of quality and design ever seen in Doctor Who during the sixties. Season Five also heralded significant changes in the production team (With the departure of Innes Lloyd, Peter Bryant would become the new Producer on Doctor Who, and Derrick Sherwin joined as Story Editor) and it is perhaps testament to this smooth transition behind the scenes, together with Troughton, Hines, and Watling’s endearing performances, that all contributed towards The Web of Fear, and Season Five as a whole, achieving such a high standard in both terms of quality and production that it would become one of the programmes most distinctive and memorable seasons of all time.

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Dr Who: The Era of Monsters

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2nd Doctor, Anneke Wills, Ben, Cybermen, Daleks, Deborah Whatling, Doctor Who, Evil of the Daleks, Frazer Hines, Fury From The Deep, Ice Warriors, Jamie, Michael Craze, Patrick Troughton, Polly, Power of the Dalek, The Abominable Snowmen, The Dominators, The Enemy of the World, The Faceless Ones, The Highlanders, The Ice Warriors, The Invasion, The Krotons, The Macra Terror, The Mind Robber, The Moonbase, The Seeds of Death, The Space Pirates, The Underwater Menace, The War Games, The Web of Fear, The Wheel In Space, Tomb of the Cybermen, Victoria, Yeti, Zoe

Dr Who: The Era of Monsters

By Paul Bowler

 

When William Hartnell transformed into Patrick Troughton during the final episode of The Tenth Planet (1966), a nation held its breath as a new Doctor emerged from a gleaming halo of light to whisk his companions Ben (Michael Craze) and Polly (Anneke Wills) away to the planet Vulcan, and their first encounter with the Doctor’s ach enemies – the Daleks! If any had doubted that the popular character actor, who was a master at utilising costumes and make up to great effect (gaining him many staring roles during the 50’s & 60’s), would be able to make the transition of Doctor Who’s leading actor a success; their doubts must have been quickly dispelled as they became enthralled by the new Doctor who emerged from the TARDIS in Power of the Daleks.

As Doctor Who’s fourth season continued apace, Patrick Troughton’s impish “cosmic hobo” would become imprinted on the minds of children and adults for generations to come, battling evil and tyranny from every dark corner of the universe. This “renewed” Doctor was strikingly different to Hartnell’s grandfatherly wanderer of the fourth dimension; Troughton was more like a chaotic Charlie Chaplin. He may have acted like a bumbling fool who happily played his recorder, with his crumpled frock coat, baggy trousers, and a penchant for outrageous hats, but the fearsome intellect within was never far from the surface and nearly always one step ahead of his enemies.

During the next story, The Highlanders (1966/67), Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) joined the TARDIS crew after the battle of Culloden, and together with the Doctor, Ben, and Polly the young Scott would soon visit Atlantis in The Underwater Menace (1967), face the Cybermen in The Moonbase (1967), and battle giant crabs in The Macra Terror (1967) before returning to Earth to confront the shape-shifting menace of the Chameleons in The Faceless Ones (1967).

After Polly and Ben decide to remain on Earth the Doctor and Jamie discover that the TARDIS has been stolen. They trace the TARDIS to Edward Satterfield’s (John Bailey) old antique shop, where they are transported back to 1867 where the Daleks are holding Waterfield’s daughter, Victoria (Deborah Watling), hostage to ensure his compliance as they manipulate Theodore Maxtible‘s (Marius Goring) experiments for their own ends. The Daleks force the Doctor to implant the human factor into three Dalek test subjects, but he ultimately turns the Daleks master plan against them by unleashing a Dalek Civil War on Skaro that destroys the Daleks and their Emperor.

Season Four had seen Doctor Who reborn with the glorious concept of regeneration. As Evil of the Daleks (1967) left the Daleks utterly defeated, the masterstroke of recasting Patrick Troughton as the Doctor had proved to be an unqualified success. Behind the scenes though big changes were afoot, as producer Innes Lloyd paved the way for his successor, Peter Bryant, while story editor Victor Pemberton (a position also held by Bryant for part of Season Five) left to be replaced by freelance writer Derrick Sherwin – who also brought his assistant, the young freelancer Terrance Dicks. The Doctor and Jamie also had a new travelling companion on board the TARDIS, Victoria Waterfield, who had decided to join them on their adventures after her father was killed in Evil of the Daleks. Victoria is brilliantly played by Deborah Whatling, who together with Frazer Hinez and Patrick Troughton’s Doctor, go on to make one of the most iconic TARDIS crews of all time as they prepare to face The  Era of Monsters…

Doctor Who’s fifth season is often cited as one of the best in the shows long running history.  The term classic is often bandied around with great aplomb when it comes to Doctor Who. It is perhaps a fitting moniker for Season Five then, as it not only oversees some of the biggest changes in the programs production team, it also features some of the highest levels of quality and design ever seen in Doctor Who during the sixties. It is this, along with the endearing trinity of Troughton, Hines, and Watling that made Season Five so memorable.

With the new Doctor and his companions now firmly established, Season Five began in fine style with Tomb of the Cybermen (1967). The TARDIS materialises on the planet Telos, where an archaeological expedition from Earth led by Professor Parry (Aubrey Richards) is trying to find the legendary tombs of the Cybermen. As the Doctor surreptitiously helps the Professor gain access to the tombs, Parry’s business partner Kaftan (Shirley Cooklin) and the treacherous Klieg (George Pastell) have their own agenda. But Klieg’s plan to form an alliance between the Cybermen and his Brotherhood of Logicians turns into horrible nightmare when, upon reactivating the tombs, the revived Cybermen turn on him. To his horror Klieg realizes that the tombs are in fact an elaborate trap, one designed to lure suitable subjects below ground for Cyber-Conversion.

Tomb of the Cybermen is a fantastic story by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis. The early scenes as the Doctor helps the archaeologist’s beak into the tombs and begin exploring are well staged by director Morris Barry, perfectly building the tension, until the team descends into the frozen tombs. Martin Johnson’s set designs are excellent for this story, the chillingly basic Cyber-Symbols are almost like high-tech hieroglyphics, depicting cold logic and function, giving you real a sense of just how inhuman and alien these monsters really are. The tombs themselves are outstanding, they really convey the relentless power and strength of the Cybermen as they emerge from their tombs, still retaining the impressive redesign they had for The Moonbase, but this time they are also joined by their leader – the gargantuan Cyber Controller (Michael Kilgarriff).

There are also some wonderful moments in this story between the Doctor and Victoria, where the Doctor helps her deal with the death of her father by telling her about his own family, and how he can always remember them in his mind. Later the party have to face a deadly swarm of Cybermats, before the Doctor finds a way to defeat the Cybermen and refreeze their tombs, but not before the Kaftan’s partially Cyber-Converted body guard, Toberman (Roy Stewart), sacrifices himself to stop the Cyber Controller from escaping the tombs. It’s fascinating to see such an explicit portrayal of body horror in this adventure. The whole idea of Cyber-Conversion is horrifying enough, but Tomberman’s fate and the graphic death of a Cyberman after having its chest plate smashed – oozing foam and writing on the ground in its death throes – are all clear signs that Doctor Who was wholeheartedly embracing a much darker tone. Even the Doctor seemed to manipulate events in a way that ensured the outcome, with a glint in his eye and a mischievous grin that belied the formidable intellect within.

With the Cybermen confined to their icy tombs the TARDIS whisks the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria to 1935 to visit a  Detsen monastery in Tibet. The Doctor sets out to return a sacred bell to his old friend The High Lama Padmasambhava (Wolfe Morris). He encounters Travers (Jack Watling), an Englishman who is trying to discover the truth behind the mysterious sightings of the Abominable Snowmen – who are later revealed to be the robotic Yeti; servants of the disembodied entity known only as the Great Intelligence.

The Doctor is shocked to find that Padmasambhava has been possessed by the Great Intelligence, prolonging the High Lama’s life and using him to control the Yeti through model replicas placed on a chessboard. With the assistance of the Monks, Jamie and Victoria help fend off the Yeti to give the Doctor time to confront the great intelligence, preventing it from attaining a corporeal form, and banishing it back into the great beyond so Padmasambhva can die peacefully.

The Abominable Snowmen (1967) is a highly atmospheric story by newcomers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln. It is an extremely clever move to have the Doctor visit the scene of an untelevised adventure, the Yeti and their bleeping control spheres would quickly become one of this seasons most iconic monster’s, lurching into life at any given moment as they stalk the mountainsides and dark halls of the monastery. But it is the all pervading sense of isolation director Gerald Blake manages to covey that really makes this story something special. As the wind howls outside the evil within is even more terrifying as Padmasambhva draws the pieces on the chessboard to their doom, his quiet rasping voice sending genuine shivers down the spine.

As well as featuring some excellent location filming, The Abominable Snowmen has some impressive production values, a great supporting cast, and Deborah Watling’s father, Jack, also played Travers. Even by today’s standards, The Abominable Snowmen stands as a great piece of television drama, and marks the debut of one of seasons fives most memorable monsters.

If the TARDIS crew thought it was cold in Tibet then their next adventure would see the temperature plunging even further below zero. The Ice Warriors (1967) sees the time travellers arrive at the dawn of a new ice age, where Leader Clent (Peter Barkworth) and his team are operating an ioniser device from their base to hold back the threat of an advancing glacier. With the world in the grip of a new Ice Age and completely reliant on the computerized ionisers to keep the glaciers at bay, the delicate balance is threatened when a giant creature is found by a group of scientists frozen in the ice. When they thaw it out, the Ice Warrior (Bernard Bresslaw) breaks free and kidnaps Victoria, taking her back to its spaceship in the glacier where he revives the rest of his crew.

With The Ice Warriors, writer Brian Hayles plays on the themes global warming and mankind’s over reliance on automated technology, with Leader Clent’s rigid adherence to protocol and logic being flung into chaos by the arrival of the Doctor. Much like Tomb of the Cybermen, the Doctor seems to manipulate events from the sidelines, gradually steering the disgruntled scientist Penley (Peter Sallis) towards patching up his differences with Leader Clent, and ultimately overriding the computers control to turn the ioniser on the Martians spaceship.

Director Bernard Martinus casting of tall actors to play the Ice Warriors was a brilliant idea, as they tower over everyone. Their impressive costumes are like armoured shells, with only their lizard like mouths showing, these reptilian aliens with their hissing voices were as ruthless as they were calculating. The Martian leader Varga is played by Bernard Bresslaw (already well know for his role in the Carry On films), and the actor makes the role his own, exuding menace as he plans to take over the base – ordering his troops to execute anyone that stands in their way with their lethal sonic weapons.  The Ice Warriors is full of memorable moments: Victoria’s plight after she escapes the Martian ship and is chased through the glacier by an Ice Warrior is nail bitingly good, Jamie has his fair share of the action as well, while Toughton’s Doctor mischievously uses a complex machine to make himself a glass of water and manages to outwit the Ice Warriors by using a stink bomb! The Ice Warriors is a fantastic story, overflowing with B-Movie thrills, and spills, while also serving as a perfect vehicle for the introduction of the Martian warriors from the Red Planet.

The Enemy of the World (1967/68) offers Patrick Troughton the opportunity to really flex his acting muscles with his dual role as the Doctor and his tyrannous doppelganger Salamander. After arriving in Australia in the future, the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria find that the world is on the verge of being taken over by Salamander – a scientist who has discovered a form of storing and using solar energy to aid the world while advancing his ambition to become its absolute ruler. Discovering that he is Salamander’s double, the Doctor decides to impersonate the dictator in waiting and ruin his plans so he can save Jamie and Victoria, but even in defeat, Salamander isn’t prepared to give up that easily.

In its attempt at creating an ambitious action adventure along the same lines as a Bond film, David Whitaker’s script is only partially successfully. Sadly not even director Barry Letts could work his magic on this story, and while the central premise is sound, it does stand out as one of the weakest stories during this otherwise impeccable season. However, its saving grace has to be Troughton’s dual performance, and the actor no doubt relished the chance to play the villainous Salamander. Deborah Watling and Frazer Hinez also have little to do; spending much of their time separated from the Doctor, but the final scenes where Salamander tries to commandeer the TARDIS and gets sucked out through the doors into the time vortex at least provides a fitting end for this slightly disappointing story.

After Salamander’s demise the TARIDS manages to avoid becoming trapped in a giant web in deep space. The Web of Fear (1968) begins in earnest when the TARDIS finally materialises in the London Underground, which has also been overrun by huge pulsating webs controlled by the Great Intelligence and its robotic Yeti. The Doctor and his companions meet up with Professor Travers (Jack Watling), who they first met forty years ago in the Himalayas. They learn that Travers brought one of the Yeti back with him, and after accidentally reactivating it, he gave the Great Intelligence the opportunity it needed to try and invade Earth again. As the webs begin to fill the underground tunnels the Doctor joins forces with the Army, led by Captain Knight (Ralph Watson), and then later Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), to fight the Yeti. The Great Intelligence draws the Doctor to its lair, determined to take possession of his body, but the Doctor is saved by his companions and the Intelligences is sent screaming back into the void from whence it came.

The Yeti make a triumphant return in Mervyn Haisman’s and Henry Lincoln’s direct sequel to The Abominable Snowmen. Directed by  Douglas Camfireld, The Web of Fear is blessed with incredibly realistic sets designed by David Myerscough-Jones. Although the plot may be little more than a whodunit, with almost everyone under suspicion as the Great Intelligence’s duplicitous servant, this is one of the most exciting stories of Season Five – memorable also for Nicholas Courtney’s first appearance as the Doctor’s long time friend Lethbridge-Stewart. Nicholas Courtney had previously appeared as Space Security Service Agent Bret Vyon in The Dalek Master Plan (1965) with William Hartnell.

Season Fives penultimate story is Fury from the Deep (1968) by Victor Pemberton. Based on the writers own BBC radio serial The Slide, and places the Doctor and his companions in mortal danger from a parasitic seaweed that is threatening to overrun a gas refinery and its offshore drilling rigs. The man in charge of the operation, Robson (Victor Maddern), is struggling to contain the situation as the seaweed and poisonous foam begins to affect his staff, possessing their minds, until he himself becomes a vessel for the weed creature dwelling within the pipeline.

Fury from the Deep is one of the most terrifying adventures of Season Five. Director Hugh David wrings every ounce of psychological tension from Pemberton’s fantastic story, preying on deep seated fears as this isolated community comes under attack. There are scenes of pure horror throughout: the pulsating heart beat of the weed creature in the pipe line is deeply unnerving, bubbling foam boils and writhes from the darkness to consume anyone in its path, and perhaps most horrific of all is when Maggie Harris (June Murphy) is attacked by the grotesque Oak and Quill who subdue her by spewing noxious fumes from their rasping black mouths. Later she appears to commit suicide as she walks into the sea, vanishing beneath the waves in what must surly be one of Doctor Who’s most chilling cliff-hangers.

When Robson becomes possessed by the weed creature he captures Victoria and takes her to the control rig, the source of the seething infestation. The Doctor and Jamie manage to rescue her and escape to the refinery, but having fully established itself the weed begins to advance through the pipeline, and its only Victoria’s high pitched screams – amplified by a device the Doctor builds – that ultimately destroys it and frees everyone from its control. Sadly this is Deborah Watling’s final story, meaning that Fury from the Deep is also tinged with a hint of sadness as this popular TARDIS crew say their goodbyes. Victoria decides to stay behind and live with Harris (Roy Spencer) and his wife Maggie at the end of the story, having grown tired of her adventures in time and space. So with a heavy heart the Doctor and Jamie bid her farewell in a poignant final scene, one that ends with them watching Victoria slowly fading from the scanner screen as the TARDIS continues on its way.

After leaving Victoria on Earth the TARDIS develops a fault with the fluid link as it arrives on a spaceship called the Silver Carrier. As they set out to find some more mercury for the fluid link the Doctor and Jamie are attacked by a Servo Robot, Jamie manages to radio a nearby space station called the Wheel and they are soon rescued, but the Cybermats hidden on the Silver Wheel have also made their way over to the space station. The Doctor and Jamie team up with a young woman called Zoe Heriot, and together they discover the Cybermen want to use the Wheel as a beacon for their Cyber-Fleet to lock onto before they can invade Earth. The Doctor manages to break the Cybermen’s hypnotic control over the space stations crew, before connecting the TARDIS vector generator rod to the stations X-Ray laser so he can use it to destroy the Cyber-Fleet.

The Wheel in Space (1968) features the return of the Cybermen and the Cybermats, but David Whitaker’s story (based on an idea by Kit Pedler) doesn’t quite mange to live up to the promise of its early episodes, and as such ends up being an extremely routine invasion story. With its claustrophobic setting in deep space, director Tristan de Vere Cole successfully builds up the tension, and you never know when a Cyberman will suddenly appear from the shadows. Overall the Wheel in Space makes a good introduction story for Zoe, and Wendy Padbury is brilliant as the super genius. The Cybermen also get a makeover for this story, there are some chilling scenes when they begin attacking the crew of the Wheel, and the Cybermats are also as deadly as ever.

As season five draws to a close Zoe joins the Doctor and Jamie on their adventures in time and space. The dynamic between this TARDIS crew does seem to shift somewhat as the series moves into its sixth season, with Zoe’s keen intellect proving to be almost  a match for the Doctor’s, while Jamie is often left a bit bemused and bewildered by how strong and independent she is. With Peter Bryant and Derrick Sherwin becoming involved in other projects, the production of Season Six was beset with difficulties: The Dominators and The Mind Robber were both subjected to rewrites, and The Krotons, The Space Pirates, and The War Games were all hastily commissioned after a successive number of stories had to be abandoned.

The sixth season of Doctor Who was the last to be entirely filmed in monochrome, and would also feature the departure of Patrick Troughton, along with Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury who had also decided to move on. In many ways Season Six is the end of an era, and although The Dominators (1968) and their deadly Quarks proved to be something of an understated start to the season, things rapidly improved when the TARDIS was apparently destroyed in the white void of The Mind Robber (1968) – transporting the Doctor and his companions into a land of fiction. The Cybermen would make another attempt to invade the Earth, this time with the help of entrepreneur Tobias Vaughan (Kevin Stoney). The Invasion (1968) would see the Cybermen emerging en mass from the sewers of London, a scene that would go on to become one of Doctor Who’s most iconic moments.

Robert Holmes first story, The Krotons (1968/69) is a far from auspicious start for the writer who would go on to write a plethora of classic Doctor Who episodes in the years to come, while The Seeds of Death (1969) would see Brian Hayles script the Ice Warriors return, before The Space Pirates (1969) also proved to be something mixed offering from Robert Holmes. The ten part epic, The War Games (1969), saw the Doctor and his friends racing across a number of different time zones in their bid to stop The War Chief from taking people from various conflicts throughout Earth’s past and making them fight for the amusement of his alien masters. At the end of the story the Doctor  is forced to call on his own people, The Time Lords, for help. The Time Lords intervene, using their immense powers to return the combatants to their own time zones, but the price is high for the Doctor. He is captured and placed on trail by his own people, charged with breaking the Time Lords code of non interference with the affairs of other worlds, and ultimately sentenced to exile on Earth. Allowed only to say goodbye to Jamie and Zoe before they are sent back to their own times, every memory of their adventures with the Doctor wiped from their minds, before he must then endure the ignominy  of having his appearance is forcibly changed by the Time Lords as he begins his sentence on Earth.

With so many of these fantastic episodes junked by the BBC much of Patrick Trougnton’s era sadly no longer exists. There is always hope that some of these episodes might turn up one day, having been sold overseas, it is entirely possible that the miraculous moment when Tomb of the Cybermen was found in Hong Kong back in 1991, and quickly released on video in 1992, might happen again one day. Indeed, in 2011 two more classic episodes turned up: Episode 3 of the William Hartnell story Galaxy 4, and Episode 2 of The Underwater Menace from Patrick Troughton’s first season. In October  2013 fans were delighted by the news that 9 episodes had been found by Philip Morris in Nigeria, The Enemy of the World (episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 & 6) and The Web of Fear (episodes 2, 4, 5, & 6), and both stories were made available to download on iTunes right away (While Episode 3 of The Web of Fear remains missing, a reconstruction was made from stills and the soundtrack to recreate it).  The Invasion was released on DVD back in 2006 with its missing episodes recreated by animation, and the results proved highly popular with fans. Two more incomplete Troughton stories were later released on DVD, The Ice Warriors and The Moonbase, using similar animation techniques to replace their missing episodes. The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear are now also available on DVD. However, the planned release for The Underwater Menace (Which would have included the long lost episode 2, and possibly animation for the missing episodes 1 & 4) was unfortunately cancelled following the insolvency at the animation company Qurios. But, following support from fans and an online petition, gaining over 2750 signatures, it now seems The Underwater Menace will finally be released on DVD on October 26th 2015 (tbc) at last! They may be missing from the BBC’s archives, but all the soundtracks of the 2^nd Doctor’s missing adventures are now available on CD, with superb linking narration, and are a still a perfect way to enjoy Doctor Who’s lost episodes. It is a credit to Troughton’s immense talent that these stories work so well on audio, they are as spellbinding now as they ever were, and effortlessly captivate our imagination of a classic era of Doctor Who that is now sadly consigned to history.

Patrick Troughton’s three years as the Doctor were some of the finest from the programmes monochrome era. Troughton’s performance is simply superb in every way, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the programme could survive the change of its lead actor. Anneke Wills and Michael Craze were instrumental in bridging these two eras of the show, while Troughton’s comic timing with Frazer Hines is a joy to behold, and together with Deborah Watling, then later Wendy Padbury, the Second Doctor’s companions would become an endearing part of this halcyon age of Doctor Who.

Season Five is certainly a contender for one of the best, if not finest, seasons of Doctor Who ever made. As Doctor Who begins to celebrate its 50^th anniversary, the programmes past is likely to come under even greater scrutiny than ever before. Season Five was ahead of its time. It takes the simple base under siege format and turns it into something uniquely special. Blessed with impeccable design and production values, Season Five introduced a wealth of classic monsters, paved the way for UNIT to be phased into the Doctor’s life, and together with a  fantastic regular cast, The Era of Monsters remains a timeless gem that will endure forever.

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