Category: Classic Season 05

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Classic Season 05 Doctor Who

Tomb Of The Cybermen

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria to the wasteland of the planet Telos, where they spot a human expedition on a journey to unearth the lost tombs of the Cybermen, a threat thought to be long extinct. Despite the Doctor’s vocal misgivings, Professor Parry and his fellow explorers insist on breaching the enormous doors and venturing into the apparently vacant tombs. But when automatic defense systems begin to pick off Parry’s team one by one, the expedition begins to look like a doomed one. When someone in the expedition reveals their true purpose – to reactivate and take control of the Cybermen – the entire galaxy begins to look doomed unless the Doctor can confine the Cybermen once more.

Order this story on DVDDownload this episodewritten by Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis
directed by Morris Barry
music not credited

Guest Cast: Roy Stewart (Toberman), Aubrey Richards (Professor Parry), Cyril Shaps (Viner), Clive Merrison (Callum), Shirley Cookin (Kaftan), George Rubicek (Hopper), George Pastell (Kleig), Alan Johns (Rogers), Bernard Holley (Haydon), Ray Grover (Crewman), Michael Kilgarriff (Cyber Controller), Hans De Vries (Cyberman), Tony Harwood (Cyberman), John Hogan (Cyberman), Richard Kerley (Cyberman), Ronald Lee (Cyberman), Charles Pemberton (Cyberman), Kenneth Seegr (Cyberman), Reg Whitehead (Cyberman), Peter Hawkins (Cybermen voices)

Broadcast from September 2 through 23, 1967

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 05 Doctor Who

The Abominable Snowmen

Doctor WhoThe Doctor, Jamie and Victoria discover that the TARDIS has brought them to present-day Tibet, high in the Himalayas, which the Doctor sees as a perfect opportunity to return a holy relic to the Det-Sen Monastery – an item that has been in his possession since the 1600s. He decides to step outside to explore, leaving Jamie and Victoria in the safety of the TARDIS to find the misplaced relic, and discovers a mangled rifle, a dead body, and enormous footprints. The Doctor returns to his timeship to collect the relic and return it to the monks at Det-Sen personally, but tells his companions that he thinks it best that they remain in the TARDIS. After he leaves again, Victoria’s curiosity gets the best of her and she goes outside to look around, and Jamie’s chivalry gets the best of him and he goes along to protect her. They’re exploring a cave when a huge furry beast traps them inside, and they find a collection of silver spheres there. At the monastery, the Doctor doesn’t get the reception he’s been expecting, and the warrior monks who protect their more peaceful brethren accuse him of murder; Professor Travers, who is searching the mountainside for signs of the legendary Yeti, witnesses his partner’s death and thinks the Doctor is responsible, thinking him to be the leader of a rival expedition. It turns out that Yeti are on the move, but not the reclusive creatures of lore – when they appear and attack the monastery, the Doctor discovers that they are robotic in nature, each containing a cavity custom-made for the spheres discovered by Jamie and Victoria. But the Yeti are being controlled by something else, somewhere – and they may be the greatest challenge ever faced by the Det-Sen monks and even the Doctor himself.

written by Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln
directed by Gerald Blake
music from stock music library

Guest Cast: Jack Watling (Professor Travers), Norman Jones (Khrisong), David Spencer (Thonmi), David Grey (Rinchen), Raymond Llewellyn (Sapan), Charles Morgan (Songsten), Wolfe Morris (Padmasambhava), David Baron (Ralpachan), Reg Whitehead, Tony Harwood, Richard Kerley, John Hogan (Yeti)

Notes: Though The Sensorites showed the Doctor and Susan to have mental abilities beyond those of mere humans, The Abominable Snowmen is the first Doctor Who adventure to make it clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Doctor’s psi powers are quite formidable, as he holds the Great Intelligence at bay. The Yeti would be seen again in The Web Of Fear, and fleetingly in The Five Doctors; they also appear in the fan-made video production Downtime, which chronicles a third attempt by the Great Intelligence to sieze Earth as its new homeworld. Incidentally, the sound of the Yeti roar is a flushing toilet, slowed down and played backward.

Broadcast from September 30 through November 4, 1967

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 05 Doctor Who

The Ice Warriors

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS tumbles into the world’s new ice age, in the third millennium. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria find themselves surrounded by snow and ice, with a human outpost led by a man named Clent. Clent’s staff are Britain’s last defense against an advancing ice shelf, but some of his men are preoccupied with something else they’ve found in the ice – an enormous armored body, larger than most humans. They bring it into the outpost to thaw it out, and when it does, it turns out that the creature is still alive. The so-called Ice Warrior

written by Brian Hayles
directed by Derek Martinus
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Wendy Gifford (Miss Garrett), Peter Barkworth (Clent), George Waring (Arden), Malcolm Taylor (Walters), Peter Diamond (Davis), Angus Lennie (Storr), Peter Sallis (Penley), Bernard Bresslaw (Varga), Roy Skelton (Computer voice), Roger Jones (Zondal), Sonny Caldinez (Turoc), Tony Harwood (Rintan), Michael Attwell (Ishur)

Broadcast from November 11 through December 16, 1967

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 05 Doctor Who

Enemy Of The World

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS materializes in the Australian surf in the future, and the Doctor excitedly tries to get Jamie and Victoria to help him build a sand castle or two. When a hovercraft teeming with armed guards appears, though, the time travelers become less relaxed – especially when the hovercraft starts firing at the Doctor in particular. The time travelers are rescued when a helicopter piloted by a woman named Astrid appears, offering them a ride back to her base, but the Doctor and his friends are no safer there. Astrid works for a man named Giles Kent, who says he’s leading a resistance movement against the ruthless dictator known as Salamander – a man who looks exactly like the Doctor. Kent wants the Doctor to impersonate Salamander in an effort to discredit and topple the man’s corrupt regime, but the Doctor is certain he hasn’t been told the whole story. When Kent also hatches a plan that involves Jamie and Victoria going undercover, the stakes are even higher. But can Salamander’s opponents prove that he is the monster that they say he is? And do they even know the whole story?

written by David Whitaker
directed by Barry Letts
music not credited

Guest Cast: Henry Stamper (Anton), Rhys McConnochie (Rod), Simon Cain (Curly), Mary Peach (Astrid), Bill Kerr (Kent), Colin Douglas (Bruce), Milton Johns (Benik), George Pravda (Denes), David Nettheim (Fedorin), Patrick Troughton (Salamander), Carmen Munroe (Fariah), Gordon Faith, Elliott Cairnes (Guard Captains), Bill Lyons (Guard), Reg Lye (Griffin), Andrew Staines (Sergeant), Christopher Burgess Doctor Who(Swann), Adam Verney (Colin), Margaret Hickey (Mary), Dibbs Mather, Bob Anderson, William McGuirk (Guards)

Note: Considered “lost” for decades following a purge of videotape and film stock in the BBC’s archives, all six episodes of Enemy Of The World now exist thanks to the 2013 discovery of 16mm film copies in a broadcast transmitter hut in Nigeria.

Broadcast from December 23, 1967 through January 27, 1968

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 05 Doctor Who

The Web Of Fear

Doctor WhoThe Doctor, Jamie and Victoria are nearly sucked out into the time vortex when Salamander takes off with the TARDIS doors open. Salamander is ejected from the TARDIS, and the ship lands safely in the London Underground circa 1968. But all is not well in central London: a deadly mist hovers above ground over the Circle Line, and an even deadlier web is filling the tunnels of the Underground. Yeti patrol the tunnels, trapping a batallion of Army soldiers in the tunnels. The Great Intelligence has trapped the Doctor and his friends in a scheme to take over the Doctor’s mind, using the Time Lord’s immense knowledge for evil. Professor Travers, the scientist who the Doctor saved from the Yeti in 1930s Tibet, is able to vouch for the time travelers’ good intensions, though some of the soldiers aren’t so trusting. The Doctor races against time to wrest control of the robotic Yeti from the Great Intelligence and to find a traitor among the contingent of soldiers in the Underground. And perhaps most importantly of all, the Doctor must gain the trust of an unusually open-minded Army officer, Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart.

written by Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln
directed by Douglas Camfield
music not credited

Guest Cast: Nicholas Courtney (Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart), Jack Watling (Professor Travers), Tina Packer (Anne Travers), Frederick Schrecker (Julius Silverstein), Rod Beacham (Lane), Ralph Watson (Knight), Richardson Morgan (Blake), Jon Rollason (Chorley), Jack Woolgar (Arnold), Stephen Whittaker (Weams), Bernard G. High (Soldier), Joseph O’ Connell (Soldier), John Levene (Yeti), John Lord (Yeti), Gordon Stothard (Yeti), Doctor WhoColin Warman (Yeti), Jeremy King (Yeti), Roger Jacombs (Yeti), Derek Pollitt (Evans)

Note: Considered “lost” for decades following a purge of videotape and film stock in the BBC’s archives, five of the six episodes of The Web Of Fear now exist thanks to the 2013 discovery of 16mm film copies in a broadcast transmitter hut in Nigeria. The third episode – in which the Doctor first meets Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart – sadly remains missing.

Broadcast from February 3 through March 9, 1968

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 05 Doctor Who

Fury From The Deep

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS deposits the Doctor, Victoria and Jamie near a North Sea natural gas refinery, whose pipelines radiate a disturbing, heartbeat-like sound. When refinery personnel find the Doctor trying to diagnose the problem, the head of the refinery operation assumes that the Doctor is trying to sabotage their operation. But once they’re at the refinery itself, the time travelers quickly learn that something is dangerously amiss. Drilling rigs at sea have dropped out of communication, samples of strange seaweed enshrouded in a pulsating foam have been found, and those who have come in contact with the seaweed have never been the same again. The Doctor offers his help, but when it is refused it puts he and his companions in even greater risk. When the Doctor encounters the seaweed, it takes time for him to realize that one of his companions has the best defense against it.

written by Victor Pemberton
directed by Hugh David
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Victor Maddern (Robson), Roy Spencer (Harris), Graham Leaman (Price), Peter Ducrom (Guard), June Murphy (Maggie Harris), John Garvin (Carney), Hubert Rees (Chief Engineer), John Abierni (Van Lutyens), Richard Mayes (Baxter), Bill Burridge (Quill), John Gill (Oak), Margaret John (Megan Jones), Brian Cullingford (Perkins)

Note: The master tapes of this episode were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s, and no video copies exist.

Broadcast from March 16 through April 20, 1968

Notes: Writer Victor Pemberton penned another Doctor Who adventure with a menace spawned from the sea, The Pescatons, the first commercially-released audio-only Doctor Who story, starring Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen. This story marked the first-ever appearance of the sonic screwdriver in Doctor Who, and the Doctor prophetically points out that it’ll “work on anything”. This is the final story to feature Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield, though the character would return in the fan-made film Downtime in the 1990s.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 05 Doctor Who

The Wheel In Space

Doctor WhoAfter leaving Victoria on Earth, the Doctor and Jamie find themselves aboard a drifting spacecraft. A fault in the TARDIS’ mercury fluid link creates a dangerous malfunction, which the Doctor resorts to drastic measures to stop, removing the timeship’s time vector generator and folding down its internal dimensions until it literally is a police box. The Doctor is knocked out as the spacecraft lurches suddenly, leaving Jamie on his own. When the ship comes dangerously close to space station W3, the station’s commander prepares to blast the ship out of the sky, over his crew’s objections. Jamie manages to signal the space station, which sends astronauts across to retrieve the two time travelers, who find themselves hard-pressed to explain their presence. The ship is millions of miles off course and shouldn’t have been anywhere near W3 at all. When a Cybermat appears, the Doctor realizes that the Cybermen can’t be far behind – and they’ve used the ship to smuggle themselves aboard the wheel. But what is the Cybermen’s real goal?

Order this story on audio CDwritten by David Whitaker
from a story by Kit Pedler
directed by Tristan de Vere Cole
music by Brian Hodgson and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Guest Cast: Freddie Foote (Servo-Robot), Eric Flynn (Ryan), Anne Ridler (Dr. Corwyn), Clare Jenkins (Tanya Lernov), Michael Turner (Bennett), Donald Sumpter (Enrico Casali), Kenneth Watson (Duggan), Michael Goldie (Laleham), Derrick Gilbert (Vallance), Kevork Malikyan (Rudkin), Peter Laird (Chang), James Mellor (Flannigan), Jerry Holmes, Gordon Stothard (Cybermen), Peter Hawkins, Roy Skelton (Cybermen voices)

Notes: Portions of this episode were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s; the two surviving episodes appear on the Lost In Time DVD set. This episode marks the first appearance of the Doctor’s nom de plume, “John Smith”, which would be used more frequently in the Pertwee era and would reappear in everything from the 1996 TV movie through David Tennant’s tenure. Jamie coined the name in a bit of a pinch, and perhaps as a payback, the tenth Doctor instead uses the alias “James McCrimmon” during a visit to Scotland in Tooth And Claw. Zoe joins the TARDIS crew in this story, and the end of episode six the Doctor sets up a device to replay a recent adventure with the Daleks to her, which was an inspired way to lead into a rare rerun (in this case, The Evil Of The Daleks). This marked the final appearance of the Moonbase-style Cybermen; in their next appearance, in The Invasion, they would undergo a major redesign.

Broadcast from April 27 through June 1, 1968

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green