Category: Classic Season 14

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Classic Season 14 Doctor Who

Masque Of Mandragora

Doctor WhoDuring an aimless tour of the endless depths of the TARDIS, the Doctor introduces Sarah to the ornately wood-paneled secondary control room, which duplicates the functions of the master console room. When he fires up the secondary control room’s instruments, the Doctor discovers that the TARDIS is headed for the Mandragora Helix, a spaceborne vortex of malevolent energy. Forced to the land within it briefly, the Doctor is helpless to prevent a fragment of the Helix’s energy from boarding the TARDIS. After escaping from the vortex, the Doctor is surprised when the TARDIS brings them to late 1600s Italy, where Sarah is promptly kidnapped by a band of hooded figures. While trying to find her, the Doctor realizes that the Mandragora Helix has come to Earth. The local Duke has died, and his young, idealistic son Giuliano now holds his power, though the local population is under the tyrannical thumb of the boy’s uncle, Count Federico. And Sarah is about to be sacrificed by a murderous cult which will find a great ally in the unearthly newcomer which the Doctor has unwittingly brought with him.

Season 14 Regular Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Louise Jameson (Leela)

Download this episodewritten by Louis Marks
directed by Rodney Bennett
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: John Laurimore (Count Federico), Gareth Armstrong (Giuliano), Tim Piggott-Smith (Marco), Norman Jones (Hieronymous), Antony Carrick (Captain Rossini), Robert James (High Priest), Pat Gorman, James Appleby, John Clamp (Guards), Peter Walshe, Jay Neill (Pikemen), Brian Ellis (Brother), Peter Tuddenham (Mandragora voice), Peggy Dixon, Jack Edwards, Alistair Fullarton, Michael Reid, Kathy Wilfit (Dancers), Stuart Fell (Entertainer)

Broadcast from September 4 through 25, 1976

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 14 Doctor Who

The Hand of Fear

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS arrives in a desolate, rocky landscape – which the Doctor and Sarah realize, only too late, is actually a rock quarry. Sirens go off to signal imminent blasting, and the time travelers fail to get far enough away from the blast. The Doctor and Sarah survive, but Sarah finds something unusual and perhaps even alien: something which appears to be a petrified severed hand. Though she was only slightly injured by the blast at the quarry, Sarah soon begins to exhibit strange and dangerous behavior, even walking into the core of a nuclear reactor. As it turns out, she has been possessed by an entity known as Eldrad, whose quest for revenge upon her native world of Kastria is boundless – and who won’t hesitate to sacrifice the lives of everyone around her to achieve that aim.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Bob Baker & Dave Martin
directed by Lennie Mayne
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Roy Pattison (Zazzka), Roy Skelton (Rokon), David Purcell (Abbott), Renu Setna (Intern), Rex Robinson (Dr. Carter), Robin Hargreave (Guard), Glyn Houston (Professor Watson), Frances Pidgeon (Miss Jackson), Roy Boyd (Driscoll), John Cannon (Elgin), Judith Paris (Eldrad), Stephen Thorne (Eldrad), Libby Ritchie (Hospital Nurse)

Broadcast from October 2 through 23, 1976

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 14 Doctor Who

The Deadly Assassin

Doctor WhoThe Doctor collapses in the TARDIS as it takes him back to his home planet of Gallifrey, experiencing a vivid premonition of the assassination of the President of the Time Lords’ High Council – a vision in which he seems to play the part of the gunman. Since the Doctor’s TARDIS is a stolen vehicle, he has to evade security guards upon his return to Gallifrey, trying to reach the President to warn him of his impending fate. When the Doctor tries to stop the assassin at the fateful moment, the only thing that any of his fellow Time Lords see is that he’s the man with the weapon. The Doctor uses a legal loophole to buy enough time to find the real killer, who turns out to be his oldest enemy – but this time, the Doctor isn’t the target. The Master, struggling at the end of his final regeneration, plans to take revenge on all of Gallifrey.

Download this episodewritten by Robert Holmes
directed by David Maloney
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Peter Pratt (The Master), Llewellyn Rees (President), Angus Mackay (Cardinal Borusa), Bernard Horsfall (Chancellor Goth), George Pravda (Castellan Spandrell), Derek Seaton (Commander Hildred), Eric Chitty (Coordinator Engin), Hugh Walters (Commentator Runcible), John Dawson, Michael Bilton (Time Lords), Maurice Quick (Gold Usher), Peter Mayock (Solis), Helen Blatch (Voice)

Broadcast from October 30 through November 20, 1976

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 14 Doctor Who

The Face Of Evil

Doctor WhoThe Doctor arrives on a distant world populated by two tribes, the Sevateem and the Tesh. He quickly bumps into a Sevateem woman named Leela, who has been banished from her village for denying the existence of Xoanon – an entity whom the Sevateem worship as a god. The Doctor can only stand by helplessly as the Sevateem mount a suicidal attack upon the more advanced Tesh. The Doctor soon realizes that these primitives are the descendants of an interstellar exploration detail: the survey team and the technicians. Both tribes recognize and revere him as the Evil One…but despite the bloodshed, no one will allow him to go near Xoanon, a sentient computer whose tyrannical rule is a result of the Doctor’s past interference.

Download this episodewritten by Chris Boucher
directed by Pennant Roberts
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Leslie Schofield (Calib), Victor Lucas (Andor), Brendan Price (Tomas), Colin Thomas (Sole), David Garfield (Neeva), Lloyd McGuire (Lugo), Tom Kelly, Brett Forrest (Guards), Leon Eagles (Jabel), Mike Elles (Gentek), Peter Baldock (Acolyte), Tom Baker, Rob Edwards, Pamela Salem, Anthony Frieze, Roy Herrick (voices of Xoanon)

Original title: The Day God Went Mad

Broadcast from January 1 through 22, 1977

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 14 Doctor Who

The Robots of Death

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Leela arrive in a mobile sand refinery on a distant planet at precisely the wrong time – a murder has just taken place. Since they’re the only newcomers among a bunch of paranoid miners who have been cooped up together for months, the Doctor and Leela are naturally the prime suspects, but even while they’re under guard, members of the crew continue to turn up dead. The Doctor is the first to propose an outrageous theory – that the ships large complement of robots have somehow been programmed to override their built-in inability to harm human beings. But by the time he is able to convince anyone of the merit of this idea, most of the crew have fallen victim to the robots’ onslaught – leaving the Doctor, Leela, and the surviving crew as the next victims.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Chris Boucher
directed by Michael E. Briant
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Russell Hunter (Commander Uvanov), Pamela Stern (Toos), David Bailie (Dask), Rob Edwards (Chub), Brian Croucher (Borg), Tariq Yunus (Cass), David Collings (Poul), Tania Rogers (Zilda), Miles Fothergill (SV7), Gregory de Polnay (D84)

Broadcast from January 29 through February 19, 1977

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 14 Doctor Who

The Talons of Weng-Chiang

Doctor WhoThe Doctor brings Leela to Victorian-era London to give her some exposure to what he considers civilization, though things quickly become less than civilized when a Chinese man makes an attempt on the Doctor’s life. Relations between the natives of London and the city’s growing Chinese population are equally strained elsewhere, as allegations of kidnapping surround stage magician Li H’sen Chang during his residence at a local theater, run by Henry Gordon Jago. Numerous men confront Chang with accusations that he hypnotized their wives and ladyfriends during his magic show – and every woman disappeared shortly afterward. The Doctor investigates Chang’s magic show and discovers that the magician is using more than sleight-of-hand to accomplish his amazing feats – he is receiving technological help too advanced for the Victorian era, in exchange for which Chang is performing murderous services for his master – from the future.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Robert Holmes
directed by David Maloney
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: John Bennett (Li H’sen Chang), Deep Roy (Mr. Sin), Michael Spice (Weng-Chiang / Greel), Trevor Baxter (Professor Litefoot), Christopher Benjamin (Henry Gordon Jago), Tony Then (Lee), Alan Butler (Buller), Chris Gannon (Casey), John Wu (Coolie), Conrad Asquith (PC Quick), David McKail (Sergeant Kyle), Patsy Smart (Ghoul), Judith Lloyd (Teresa), Vaune Craig-Raymond (Cleaning Woman), Peggy Lister (Singer), Vincent Wong (Ho), Stuart Fell (Giant rat)

Original Title: The Talons Of Greel

Broadcast from February 26 through April 2, 1977

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green