Serial 140: The Two Doctors

Doctor: Colin Baker (6th Doctor), Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companion: Peri Brown, Jamie McCrimmon

Written by: Robert Holmes
Directed by: Peter Moffat

Background & Significance: In 1985 Doctor Who turned twenty two. So it was a few years past the 20th and still a few years from the 25th. Other than that, it's not really that remarkable. Sure, I suppose it's the sole season featuring Colin Baker as The Doctor. Compared to the previous twenty two, his twenty third is positively abbreviated, so it's hard to count that in my head. This was his first proper season. Other than that, there's nothing special or remarkable about it, is there?

And yet here we are talking about a multi-Doctor crossover.

Given the rousing success with which Robert Holmes had written "The Caves of Androzani", Eric Saward was quick to hire him back for another go at some Doctor Who. John Nathan-Turner (capable of knowing how good "Androzani" was and being not unintelligent) was quick to acquiesce to the idea. So we have the return of Robert Holmes offering one of his last stories for one of the most... marmite seasons of Doctor Who ever. And he was given a laundry list of things to do: bring in the 2nd Doctor. And Jamie. And Sontarans. Oh and set it in America. We're thinking New Orleans, because that lines up with your desire to do a story about food.

It was soon changed from Seville from New Orleans because the location filming fell through. And honestly, why not Spain?

But the point stands that this story had a laundry list of things to accomplish and Holmes had three whole episodes (the equivalent of a six parter in the old, 25-minute episode days) with which to incorporate all his ideas. And is it too much? Perhaps? How does Holmes react to the violence and intensity that he helped usher in with "Androzani"? How does he handle all of these elements and how does Colin Baker do? So many thoughts. I mean, well, we haven't talked about C. Baker in a god damn age. And it'll be the last time we talk about him. Sad.

So let's get to it!

Serial 45: The Mind Robber

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companion: Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot

Written by: Peter Ling
Directed by: David Maloney

Background & Significance: Patrick Troughton's final season was one giant limp to the finish line for 1960s Doctor Who. As it was originally conceived, Doctor Who was a smaller, less technically-demanding show and could thusly fit more into a weekly production schedule. Recycle your sets for a few weeks, keep the stories coming, no one would be the wiser. It's why the show was able to crank out forty episodes per year for almost six years: less location shooting, less ambition.

Fortunately, given its growing popularity, Doctor Who got more and more ambitious. There was location shooting and aliens and bigger sets and a bigger, more action-based show than the one that was originally conceived.

Needless to say, this was one of the contributing factors to the massive overhaul the show saw starting in "Spearhead From Space". The show's episode count was dropped from 40+ to 25. There was a transition to colour. And all of a sudden Doctor Who became much more producible and less demanding on its actors. Indeed, one of the reasons Patrick Troughton left the role (besides his fear of typecasting) was to take a break from the grueling pace of putting out so many frakking episodes in a year (and to his credit, he didn't take nearly as many days off as other actors did; to be fair, though, Hartnell was remarkably sick when he took the role).

"The Mind Robber" is one of those stories that suffers from this scheduling push. The production team behind Doctor Who was a revolving door around this time, There were new script editors and producers coming in and leaving more or less constantly and the upheaval the show was in led to a "let's just get these out" mentality. Despite this, though, there was the notion that the writers wouldn't sacrifice quality if they could help it, and when it became clear that the story preceding "The Mind Robber" was going to be rubbish (it's "The Dominators" if you must know) they hacked the episode count of that story from six episodes to five episodes in the hope that maybe (just maybe) they could make it a little more bearable. And in their defense, I'm fairly sure a five episode "Dominators" is slightly more bearable than a six episode one, but only fairly.

With the need to fill another episode in the order (and wanting to not get slammed like they did with "Mission to the Unknown" a few seasons back when they cut an episode out of "Planet of the Giants") it was up to script editor Derrick Sherwin to come up with an extra episode to tack onto the top of "The Mind Robber" so they would fill their seasonly quota. To compensate for the overrun, the episodes were all condensed from the usual 25 minutes to an experimental 20 minutes, so we're still getting a hundred minutes of story, only spread out over five episodes instead of the usual four (with the first being a prologue to establish the setting at hand, or at least, to weird you the fuck out for twenty minutes before they slam you with something even more mindblowing).

Written by Peter Ling and introducing the direction of the fantastic David Maloney, it makes "The Mind Robber" something remarkably special and iconic for so many different reasons.

So let's get to it!

Serial 33: The Moonbase

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companions: Jamie, Ben, and Polly

Written by: Kit Pedler
Directed by: Morris Barry

Background & Significance: Ever since "The Daleks", Doctor Who was always looking for a returning monster to rival The Doctor's original alien foes. That's clearly what the Mechanoids were and it's clearly where the Quarks came from. But nothing ever warranted that "special return" treatment. Yes, you had The Monk returning in "The Daleks' Master Plan", but that hardly counts as "returning monster" especially because he doesn't turn up again.

With this story, The Cybermen enter the pantheon and become the first one-off monster after the Daleks to be "recurring villains".

The story, of course, is also a tentpole for another reason. After their first outting with the format, the production team decided to come up with "formulaic" Doctor Who, or Doctor Who with a simpler, more predictable structure to aid in the relentless schedule they were dealing with at the time. This new format ("the base under siege") was something that would be used across almost half of the stories of the Troughton era, so it's really a key turning point for the show. It's at this point that, truly, the show focuses more on the action and adventure elements inherent in its sci-fi premise than the odd explorations and outtings prevalent across the first three seasons of the series. And if the first scene doesn't tell you that, then I don't know what to tell you.

So let's get to it!

Serial 31: The Highlanders

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companions: Jamie, Ben, and Polly

Written by: Elwyn Jones & Gerry Davis
Directed by: Hugh David

Background & Significance: In the Classic series there's always a crossfade across Doctors and production teams and it always takes a little bit for the production to steer the show into a new and interesting direction. This is perhaps most evident in "Robot," in which Tom Baker's first story is a Pertwee story produced by Barry Letts and written by Terrence Dicks. At its most lengthy, we have the transition from William Hartnell to Patrick Troughton.

"The Highlanders" is a big transition point, and not only because it's the first story to feature the 2nd Doctor's key companion: Jamie Robert McCrimmon.

Written by the developer of Z-Cars and one-time Doctor Who writer Elwyn Jones, "The Highlanders" finds itself as a bridge of sorts. That's not surprising. "The Highlanders" is a historical, and really the last true historical until "Black Orchid" some fifteen years later. And if you wanna go for something more attainable, like Doctor Who in a historical setting, you'd still have to jump all the way to "The Time Warrior", which was seven years after this. As a historical, it's clear it's on the way out. "The Time Meddler" as a thing pretty much cripples the pure historical by introducing science fiction elements (which makes for an admittedly cooler story) while "The Massacre" was a glorious swan song for John Lucarotti's brand of intense character drama.

"The Gunfighters" and "The Smugglers" are still fantastic.

But this is the last historical we'll talk about on this blog, and I feel it's a good time to look at the historical outside of a Hartnell context. Sure, the last time we did a historical was an unmitigated disaster (and possibly the worst entry I've written for this blog, hence the lack of link) but I think that maybe we can bring in some discussion or what have you as we dissect this moment of transition for both the Troughton era and the show in general. Historicals? What is it about them? And Troughton? How does early Troughton look as we slowly brush up closer and closer to his regeneration.

So let's get to it!

Serial 40: The Enemy of the World

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companions: Jamie, Victoria

Written by: David Whitaker
Directed by: Barry Letts

Background & Significance: Story wise, "The Enemy of the World" is the exact middle of the Troughton era. Coincidentally (as this isn't always the case), it's the exact middle of Troughton's second (middle) season.  It's most famous for being the one in which "The Doctor is the bad guy" and Patrick Troughton plays the evil villain of the story, the devious Salamander.

But really it looks to me like this is just a big ol' changing of the guard.

This is the final story to be produced by Innes Lloyd, the man who had overseen the previous two seasons worth of Doctor Who, taking over after the departure of John Wiles starting with "The Celestial Toymaker". He'd overseen the show through its first ever regeneration and after continuing on the show far longer than he had planned or wanted to, he left after this story with script editor Peter Bryant stepping up to take the producership reigns. To replace Bryant they found a young fellow named Derrick Sherwin to be script editor and Sherwin in turn quickly hired his friend Terrance Dicks to be his assistant. This is also the last story to be overseen by Sydney Newman, who was the head of BBC drama going back to before "An Unearthly Child." So yeah. One of the guys who ushered in Doctor Who is no longer a force involved after this story.

To further complicate this massive changing of the guard, we have David Whitaker back and writing another story that defies our expectations yet again. "Enemy of the World" is the sole story in this entire season that isn't a base under siege. No. Whitaker comes up with something totally different: a James Bondian inspired story featuring Patrick Troughton as the villain. To play up the Bond (and really, so much Bond), they bring in Barry Letts on to direct the story. So yeah. The Patron Saint of Bond-based Doctor Who got to preview his own entire era a year and a half before he actually took over the show. It wasn't the plan, sure, but it's interesting that the first script editor is teaming up with the future producer to usher out a bump in production team with a unique story before it gets all sieged under bases again.

And that's just a taste.

So let's get to it!

Serial 48: The Seeds of Death

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companion: Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot


Written by: Brian Hayles
Directed by: Michael Ferguson

Background & Significance: So now that we're back in this season again, I probably don't need to go into the sordid details about just how much work it was to produce Doctor Who by this point. Now in its sixth year, the show was getting more and more ambitious, and its ambition was getting harder and harder to produce on a shooting schedule as rigorous as it currently had. They were doing over forty episodes a year and the grind was relentless. The previous season had the benefit of being impossibly formulaic and unambitious. But now that the show as under Peter Bryant's producership, it was trying increasingly new and different things.

Or at least, it seems that way to me.

"Seeds of Death" is something of an anomaly for the season. It's very obviously a base-under-siege story and is the second story of the season about a massive invasion of Earth. The previous base-under-siege story also happened to be a backdoor pilot to the UNIT era and featured lots and lots of Cybermen. This one features the return of the Ice Warriors, elevating them to "return monsters" status and the Ice Warriors' creator Brian Hayles does a lot to expand the Ice Warriors' mythology and make them a bigger threat than they were previously. But it really does function as a last hurrah to the base under siege format that... well... plagued the Troughton era.

So let's get to it!

Serial 34: The Macra Terror

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)

Companions: Jamie, Ben, and Polly

Written by: Ian Stuart Black
Directed by: John Howard Davies

Editor's Note: Hey, gang. This is just a friendly reminder that Cassandra's stepping in to write about "The Macra Terror" this week. It's a good 'un. Next week I'll be back for "Paradise Towers". Joy.

Background & Significance: I always have trouble finding things worthy of this section whenever I write a post here. And the same goes for "The Macra Terror" because, while awesome, there's not a ton of significance or background, but I shall try my best.

This serial is the last televised Doctor Who story by writer Ian Stuart Black, who wrote "The Savages" and "The War Machines" back in season three. I know both of those stories aren't necessarily the best, and I do have a few problems with this that I'll be discussing at length later, but "Macra Terror" is clearly the best out of Black's three contributions to Doctor Who history, and there's no better way to go out than with a bang like this one.

As far as directors go, this is John Howard Davies's only stint on Doctor Who and because it doesn't exist, we'll never know if he did a great job or not. Which is sad, but I like to think he did. Because there are some great sequences in here, but I'll get to those in a bit.

I think the biggest thing with this story is that this is the first serial that featured the new and revamped credits sequence with Troughton's face, which set the standard for how credit sequences were designed until the 2005 reboot (in which there are no face credits). So that's something. Also, Anneke Wills got a haircut?

But enough about all that. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 47: The Krotons

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)

Companions: Jamie, Zoe

Written by: Robert Holmes

Directed by: David Maloney

Background & Significance: If you know me, or how I talk about Doctor Who, you know that the way I come into the show is based almost entirely around writing and the way in which Doctor Who is constructed. A lot of that is down to the writers because they are (in so many ways so many people could never understand) possibly the most important linchpin to any creative endeavor. Without the writer, there is nothing.

I say all this to underline the fascination I have with "The Krotons". Which (for those not in the know) is the first Doctor Who story that Robert Holmes ever wrote.

Produced as the "middle serial" of season six, it's worth pointing out that this is the last story of the first half of Patrick Troughton's last season. By this point, the burnout factor of Doctor Who in the 1960s was starting to take its toll on the show. And hey, who can blame them? This isn't a soap opera with the fortitude to produce THAT many episodes, and this was the sixth year in a row that Doctor Who had produced forty or more episodes. So everyone was tired and really pushing forward to just finish out the season by any means necessary so they could get to the colour and the UNIT and the producing 26ish episodes a year as opposed to the usual 40+. It was at this time that Derrick Sherwin stepped aside as script editor to help Doctor Who in other ways, making way for his assistant Terrance Dicks to step in and drive the script editing for the show...

And wouldn't you know it, but it was at this same time that Robert Holmes jumped into the picture.

Now Toby Hadoke mentions this in Running Through Corridors, but it bears repeating here: it's interesting that two of the three most influential writers in Classic Doctor Who made their first appearance around this time, almost six years into the show's existence. And it's interesting how the two were almost meant to write the show. According to reports, Holmes's initial draft for this story was turned in almost two months early and rushed into production when the original story assigned to this production ("The Prison in Space") bowed out due to the writer not getting along with notes (or something; don't quote me on that). And really, who turns in a draft so early without someone pointing at him and saying "Damn. He might be something?"

"The Krotons" is his first story, and it's one of the first stories directed by David Maloney, who would go on to direct some fantastic other ones (don't worry, you've seen them) and had already previously directed "The Mind Robber", and it's interesting how it's overlooked/forgotten, or that Robert Holmes outright wrote for five different Doctors on television, but how Holmes's real work on the show almost really doesn't start until he introduces the 3rd Doctor and starts getting all Holmesy. Think of this and "The Space Pirates" as... trial runs, almost. That's not to say they're not good, but I'd hardly consider "The Krotons" indicative of what Holmes would write later ("Mysterious Planet" notwithstanding, but I'll discuss that I guess). No. "Spearhead" is almost a better fresh start to say "look at this guy stumbling onto the scene with some geniusness".

And yet, "The Krotons" is his first. And it's... Well... I think we should talk about it.

So let's get to it!

Serial 41: The Web of Fear

Doctor: Patrick Troughton  (2nd Doctor)

Companions: Jamie, Victoria

Written by: Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln

Directed by: Douglas Camfield

Background & Significance: Almost a year ago we talked about "The Abominable Snowmen" and how The Doctor went to a far off and exotic location to fight some Yeti, or rather, more correctly, he fought a disembodied sentience who created massive creatures (Yeti) to carry out their bidding. The story met various degrees of success when it was first out. I found it middling, but I know others quite like it.

Then again, those people probably knew more than I did when I watched it for the first time... They'd already seen this one, the one that made the Yeti transcendentally legendary.

It's not hard to see why "The Web of Fear" would be legendary. I mean, in terms of check lists, it is the televisual return of the Yeti, thereby elevating them above other such popular monsters like Zygons, Wirrn, Krynoids, and Macra by proving their viability as recurring monsters and meaning that in eventual Doctor Who visual companions The Yeti can get, say, a page to themselves whereas other monsters like the Zygons will still get a page but that page is much more padded and stretched because there's possibly less to say about them. I jest, but the point remains that I feel like more people would care to see the new series bring back the Ice Warriors (who had four classic appearances) than they would, say, Zygons.

So yes, the Yeti are back.

But there's more! This is the story that really kicks the door down to allow The UNIT era to happen. It's the first time The Doctor teams up with the military to take down an evil foe (the first time hardly counts) and that means he's back on Earth to deal with a problem at home. It's also the introduction of The Brigadier in the first of many, many recurring appearances and he's cast by director Douglas Camfield, who had previously directed "The Daleks' Master Plan" and "The Time Meddler" and would go on to direct other such greatnesses as "The Terror of the Zygons" and "The Seeds of Doom". He's an action man through and through and who better to direct this story?

So let's get to it!

Serial 36: The Evil of the Daleks

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companion: Jamie, Victoria

Written By: David Whitaker
Directed By: Derek Martinus 

Background & Significance: The first four seasons of Doctor Who saw the show at its first peak of being "super popular". It happened early on and virtually almost overnight when The Doctor and his crew first went up against "The Daleks". Now I don't need to tell you because you already know, but The Daleks were popular. No like really. Super mega popular. There were Dalek toys and games and vernacular. The whole country had been seized by Dalekmania.

Of course, this bled into Doctor Who, helping to make the show the super popular phenomenon it eventually became, and without The Daleks, the popularity might never have come and Doctor Who might have died after just a few seasons.

And Terry Nation was smart enough to know this.

Because of their popularity, Terry Nation wanted to create a Dalek show, milking all he could out of his greatest creations. He pitched and wrote an idea for the BBC which would have featured Sara Kingdom and spun out of "The Daleks Master Plan". The BBC rejected the idea (although a production of the story was later released by Big Finish just over a year ago...) and Terry Nation turned to the United States to see if they'd be interested. Because The BBC realized that Nation wanted to go a separate way, they decided to write The Daleks out of Doctor Who for good and planned for the end of the show's fourth season.

As Terry Nation wasn't available, the production teamed hired "Power of the Daleks" writer David Whitaker to pen the adventure, meaning that the guy who wrote what is almost certainly the greatest Dalek story ever made returned to bring The Doctor into a final showdown with his oldest and greatest foe. And this was supposed to be it for them. Sure, they returned later in the Pertwee era and beyond all the way to today, but for all intents and purposes, this was their last appearance ever. And the fact that they were gone for seven years shows you how seemingly serious they were about it. For perspective, they were out of the show for as long as Tom Baker was The Doctor and for longer than the Nu-Who has been back on the air.

But even beyond that, it's a turning point for the show. It's the first story that really (and I mean really) utilizes the fantastic team of 2nd Doctor/Jamie and it's the first appearance of Victoria. So... yeah. Turning point.

So let's get to it!

Serial 42: Fury From The Deep

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)

Companions: Jamie, Victoria

Written by: Victor Pemberton
Directed by: Hugh David

Background & Significance: When you look at season five of Doctor Who, the famous, so called "Monster" season (so named because the season featured two Cybermen stories, two Yeti stories, an Ice Warrior story, and Troughton "blacking himself up" to look like a dark-skinned Spaniard) stands out for a number of reasons, most notably, perhaps, because the season itself largely doesn't exist. Of the 40 episodes in season five only 13 are still around, there's only one complete story, and only one other of the seven for which half of the story exists. Most of the stories have at least one episode to hint at what the story must have looked/felt like.

Except for this one. This one is missing in its entirety.

It's written by Victor Pemberton and directed by Hugh David. Pemberton briefly stepped in as script editor for "Tomb of the Cybermen" when they decided to try that little experiment and Hugh David was last and first seen in the previous season to help introduce Jamie in "The Highlanders", so it is something of a mystery as to how exactly it would have been done. There's very little that would hint at the way that these two people affected Doctor Who for this one installment of theirs, and that (like with all the missing episodes) is a shame, especially considering they never really returned after this. At least with someone like Douglas Camfield we can extrapolate based on his later work as to how well he might have directed something, but here.... we don't really have that luxury. Not exactly.

It's also the last story featuring Victoria Waterfield, bringing to a close the scares and dares of the season in a very palpable way and ending one of the most conceptually interesting companions in the history of the programme (in my honest opinion). But I'll talk about that in a bit.

All these things give "Fury From the Deep" something of a fetishized reputation. It's extremely well-regarded and considered a highlight of what is also considered an extremely strong and highlight-worthy season. Known for its scares and B-movie horror, the story actually happens to be seaweed and foam, of all things, inserting that as "its monster" while maintaining your typical "base under siege" story that is the formula for every story this season.

So let's get to it!

Serial 44: The Dominators

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)

Companions: Jamie, Zoe

Written by: Norman Ashby (aka Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln)

Directed by: Morris Barry

Editor's Note: Hello, gentle faithfuls! It's Matt here introducing another round of Cassandra, here to this time talk about "The Dominators", and by "introducing" I mean apologizing profusely (I didn't know it would suck this bad when I gave it to her. I'M SORRY). But she's back and again she has a story that is... not strong. Le sigh. But all is well! She will have some good stuff in the future. That is a guarantee! I'll be back next week with some fun goodness but for now let's see if Cassandra can find anything redeeming in "The Dominators."

Background & Significance: It all comes down to merchandising.

Season Six is a really interesting season of Doctor Who, one that is at the same time both incredibly rocky and incredibly important. I say rocky, because in comparison to the previous season (which, barring "The Wheel in Space," is pretty phenomenal story quality wise across the board), it's fairly up and down. To go from a story like "The Dominators" to one like "The Mind Robber" (which we haven't talked about yet, but we will, and it'll be fantastic) just shows you what I mean. It reminds me a lot of this past season of Nu-Who (also a season six, hmmm), with the massive fluctuations in quality episode to episode. But I digress.

The people behind Doctor Who at this time (then-producer Peter Bryant specifically) were always looking for a new monster to take the world by storm in the way that the Daleks had. Upon their introduction in Season Four, the Cybermen proved to be serious contenders for another "Dalekmania"; likewise, Season Five introduced a lot of other cool monsters, including the Yeti and the Ice Warriors. But they all never quite reached the popularity of their fellow aliens from Skaro.

Following the relative success and great fan reception of the Yeti in the previous season, Peter Bryant approached the creators, Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, to come up with a new monster that would be potentially as marketable as the Daleks. What they came up with are the Quarks, and "The Dominators" would be their introductory story.

Needless to say, since you've probably never heard of quarks outside of physics class the creepy little robots never showed up again, "The Dominators" is a pretty terrible story, and the Quarks' attempt at dethroning the Daleks in the toy department failed hardcore. But that's what you get when you put merchandising ahead of storytelling.

But enough of all that. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 32: The Underwater Menace

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companions: Jamie, Ben and Polly

Written by: Geoffrey Orme
Directed by: Julia Smith

Background & Significance: One of the things about Doctor Who that I always tend to love is whenever they go for the simple-yet-high-concept story, something so blindingly obvious that you're shocked you didn't think of it, or rather, that it hasn't happened before. This can be anything from "The Doctor hangs out with The TARDIS" to "The Doctor and the O.K. Corral". They're simple choices that fold into larger mythologies or stories and provide "a Doctor Who take" on whatever it is we're talking about.

Enter The Doctor visits Atlantis.

"The Underwater Menace" is only Troughton's third story. It's only Jamie's second. It's only Ben and Polly's sixth. It's still fairly early in Doctor Who lore (comparatively; we're in Doctor Who's fourth season, meaning it's right around the time The Initiative should be showing up to give you a scope of "just how early" we are in the show), but it does give the show the opportunity to touch on rich, unmined material that had previously been untouched. The Doctor and his companions had already been all over time and space, from meeting Marco Polo and Emperor Nero to encountering The Daleks several times to even getting encased as displays in a large space museum. And all this stuff is well and good, but don't you think it's time for The Doctor to touch on something else that's deeply mythological and legendary, that pushes the show into a giant cool direction?

Like I said: enter Atlantis.

It's interesting to think that in Doctor's Who's massive, almost-fifty-year history that he's only ever gone to Atlantis twice. Granted, we here at Classical Gallifrey thought the last time The Doctor visited that legendary lost city it was a complete and total disaster, but there are plenty who disagree. And yet... no one seems to disagree about "The Underwater Menace." That's never a good thing. You'll always find dissenting opinions about plenty of stories. I, for one, actively hate "The Armageddon Factor", but I seem to be in the minority. Not that people say it's terribly good, but it's far from the most consistently loathed of that season, or even of Tom Baker for that matter.

Regardless, there's always discrepancy and there's always argumentation, but when the fandom is pretty universally in agreement on a story's quality, and when that agreement swings negative, you're in a lot of trouble.

The most ironic thing is the fact that Doctor Who can't ever seem to do Atlantis right. Or good. Ever. At all. Maybe it's the fact that Atlantis is too untouchable or difficult to break down to do an interesting or compelling story. It's easy to get bogged down in the fictional mythology of a place that doesn't seem to exist, or to get wrapped up in the only real Atlantis story that can exist if you're giving it a one off (that of its fall; otherwise what's the point?), but surely there can be a better solution than this.

This story also has the reputation for having the first episode of Troughton that exists in its entirety (episode three), but the reason behind that has nothing to do with Troughton and more to do with someone's idea of the biggest practical joke I've ever seen in terms of Doctor Who history. That the first Troughton episode that exists does so for the most abstractly bizarre two minutes of Doctor Who I've ever seen is both blessing and curse, I think. We have to be grateful, I suppose, that the production team sought to poison our eyes and our brains for that two minutes so that this story could at least partly exist, I just wish they'd put something more memorable in, something I'd rather see. Like "Power of the Daleks". But I digress.

So let's get to it!

Serial 43: The Wheel in Space

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companions: Jamie, Zoe

Writtten by: David Whitaker and Kit Pedler
Directed by: Tristan de Vere Cole 

Editor's Note: Hey guys! Matt here reminding you that this week Cassandra's in to talk a little bit about... well... some Cybermen. I guess she's back to the weaker stories? BUT I DON'T KNOW! It's not like I planned this. (Wait. I did.) But oh well. She'll get some good stuff again quite soon, but for now let's hear her talk about the much maligned "Wheel in Space" and I'll be back next week for some more "in Space" action. But for now: TO HER.

Background & Significance: Cybermen were the new Daleks.

At least, that's how it was during the Troughton era. Much like Daleks kept popping up all over the place in Hartnell stories, so too did the Cybermen in Troughton stories. Which increasing the probability of really terrible Cybermen stories, but who doesn't love our funny-talking cybernetic kindred from Mondas? I mean, really.

Unfortunately, "The Wheel in Space" is one of those really terrible Cybermen stories and all because Terry Nation wouldn't agree to a Cybermen/Dalek team-up. (Which quite possibly could have been the greatest thing ever if Nation stayed out of it and David Whitaker scripted, but alas, that only leads to frustrated speculation on my part. And now yours too. (You're welcome.))

The great irony of this story, for me anyway, is that it is scripted by David Whitaker, who wrote "Power of the Daleks" and "Evil of the Daleks", among other things. We know he's a good writer, so how did he go from that level of awesome to "Wheel in Space" level of dull? Personally I think it's the story by Kit Pedler, but I'll get into that a little more in the commentary.

Another thing I do need to talk about before we dive in, though, and that's the fact that this story is the first appearance of Zoe Heriot, played by the adorable Wendy Padbury, who we all know goes on to be a Companion alongside Jamie for the duration of Troughton's tenure as the Doctor. Her predecessor, Victoria, departed in the previous story "Fury from the Deep", and the character of Zoe is a sort of response to Victoria's character; Zoe is from the future and extremely intelligent and forward-thinking, which contrasts with Victoria being from the past and her more conservatively Victorian-era sensibilities.

But enough of all that. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 39: The Ice Warriors

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companions: Jamie, Victoria

Written by: Brian Hayles
Directed by: Derek Martinus

Editor's Note: Hey guys! Matt here stepping in real quick to mention that this week's blog is brought to you by Cassandra, who crushed it when talking about this week's story. But never fear! I'll be back next week with some thoughts on "Meglos", and as always keep checking out "The Doctor's Companion" for even more Classic Who discussion. Awesome stuff coming up. BUT FIRST! I'll let Cassandra kick things off!

Background & Significance: Ice Warriors, mofos!

I'm really excited to talk about this story because this is the first Troughton story I get to discuss, and I love Ice Warriors. Like, love. I don't care that they look silly or they hiss and it's hard to understand what they're talking about. They're freaking sweet.

Of course, this is the first story featuring the Martian race known as the Ice Warriors, and it's a really great first outing for them. Creator (and writer of this and every subsequent Classic story involving the Ice Warriors) Brian Hayles was approached by producer Innes Lloyd and script editor Peter Bryant to create a new recurring alien race for the Doctor to go up against, much like the Daleks and the Cybermen. Of course, the Ice Warriors wouldn't be utilized as often--they only show up in three stories after this one--but they're still, in my humble opinion, a great and iconic Doctor Who villain.

This story also deals with the idea of weather manipulation, which is a recurring theme in this era, starting with "The Moonbase". While so scientifically inaccurate it's insane, it's a lot of fun to be able to trace the various ideas people were entertaining at the time and how that bleeds into the social consciousness through a popular show like Doctor Who.

Of course, this is one of those stories thought lost to the ages at first, but thankfully was mostly recovered, with only two out of the six episodes missing (which is quite lucky, when you consider all the other stories missing in their entirety).

But enough of all that. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 49: The Space Pirates

Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)
Companions: Jamie, Zoe

Writtten by: Robert Holmes
Directed by: Michael Hart

Background & Significance: "The Space Pirates" will forever be remembered as "The One Before The War Games", and that's not just because "The War Games" is so influential and spanning and all-important. The regulars and the cast and crew themselves were in a bit of a transitionary phase while the show prepared to undergo what was essentially a square one reboot.

By season six, Patrick Troughton's final season, Doctor Who as a show was starting to become a bit tired. Nevermind Troughton himself, who cited the rigorous television schedule as grueling and tiring without any prompting from anyone else, but to have a show like Doctor Who with all its scifiness and special effects and shooting schedules etc. produce an average of over forty two stories per year, week in, week out for six years would be exhausting to any production team, and it's no wonder, therefore, that the show needed to slow down and take measure of itself and return to a place of quality or what have you. So in a lot of ways, "The War Games" becomes the last final sprint of what was essentially (at that point) weekly Doctor Who, and its quality reflects that last, final burst of energy to get it across the finish line, almost atypical in how frakking good it ended up being.

And that leaves "The Space Pirates", which is essentially the shadow of that tired show limping along before that final burst of speed.

When you start to get into the nitty gritty of Troughton's final season, it's clear to see that the production crew was absolutely languishing. "The Dominators" was supposed to be six episodes, but they trimmed it to five to enhance the quality of the remaining story. "The Invasion" was as long as it was to stall for time as other things got ready. Doctor Who legend Terrence Dicks (arguably one of the most important figures in Doctor Who's history) was emergency-promoted from assistant script editor to script editor due to outgoing script editor Derrick Sherwin's continued influence in becoming producer on the show. Dicks himself was pulled off of script editing duties towards the end of the season to co-write "The War Games" with Malcolm Hulke with Sherwin stepping in to fill in for this story, "The Space Pirates", and because of the massive scope and the finale's ten episode length, The Doctor and his companions had to pre-film their contribution to episode six.

Clearly, the behind-the-scenes of Doctor Who by this point was just... a nightmare, trying to keep the ship afloat long enough to make it to the complete relaunch with "Spearhead From Space".

Sorry. I'm rambling. Anyways...

"The Space Pirates" is writer Robert Holmes's second contribution to Doctor Who after a strong initial outing in "The Krotons". Unfortunately, "The Krotons" was meant to be the penultimate story for season six, but when the planned fourth story of the season had to be abandoned, "The Krotons" was pushed up to take its place and "The Space Pirates" was born to fill the spot left by "The Krotons." (See? Season six. Huge mess.)

The story itself is one that isn't regarded too strongly by the fandom. Most infamously for most, The Doctor and his companions don't show up until fifteen minutes into the first episode and then stays largely removed from most of the action until well into the third episode. There's probably many reasons for this, not the least of which is Holmes's own recollection that he turned in a four-part story and then was quickly asked to expand it into six parts. That alone sets off warning bells in my head, but my god... Talk about the signs of age and just stretching things out until they can make it to that glorious glorious finale and everyone can sleep a bit more.

But enough talking about silly politics. We're here to talk about some god damn Space Pirates! (Or are we?)

So let's get to it!