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 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 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 38: The Abominable Snowmen

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

Written by: Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln
Directed by: Gerald Blake

Background & Significance: When putting together and determining the order for this (what I assume many, many people consider "infernal") popcorning order, I try to make it so that we here at Classical Gallifrey don't spend too much time focusing on any particular set of sequential stories in both "the grand scheme" of the blog itself or in terms of the chronology of a particular Doctor. Granted, saying that now comes just after covering The Return of The Master trilogy, but you know what? Box sets are cool.

But here we are. At the thematic start of the Troughton era.

It's strange that the last Troughton we talked about just last month was "Tomb of the Cybermen" (and oh holy god how good was that even still!) and this, "The Abominable Snowmen" comes from Troughton's next sequential story. Not intentional, I can assure you.

And yet, I almost feel like it continues a oeuvre unique to Troughton. "Tomb of the Cybermen" comes from Troughton's second season, and yet it doesn't seem to fit the mold of those stories that came directly after it. Troughton's second season (season five in the overall scope of the show) is a season that many have referred to as "Monster"-based. It's here that we have The Doctor going up against Cybermen, an introduction to The Ice Warriors (who will return in the next season), evil seaweed, more Cybermen (do Cybermats count? NO NO WE'RE NOT TALKING CYBERMEN), and the Yeti, who appear in this story and a story just a little later called called "The Web of Fear". Which I know we'll talk about eventually.

So in a lot of ways, "The Abominable Snowmen" is the kick off for this era of monsters and it's a real fitting place to start now that I feel comfortable discussing stories that are at least partially missing. But it's also important for other things.

The most obvious, as we talked about just a second ago (literally! Just seconds!) is the start of this Parade of Monsters, and famous monsters at that, although this is (ironically) not their most famous of stories even though you'd totally expect it to be. The Yeti are legends in their own rights, but not for this story. I mean, every time we're reminded about the Yeti, we're reminded of  how many times The Brigadier fought The Yeti (but in the London Underground)?

But that's a different story ("Web of Fear"! Coming eventually!). This is the start of something different. For one thing, this is the return of the long story, which would prevail all throughout the rest of Troughton's era. The past two seasons of the show made a concerted effort to tell smaller, less rambly four part stories, but every story from here until Troughton's departure in "The War Games" is more than four parts (excepting one), and it... shows. And it hurts the overall result of the era, I think. Longer stories feel more epic and sprawling and big and old school and all that, but that only works if you can effectively fill the time with something compelling (See "The War Games" or "The Invasion"). This is one of those stories that suffers from being not only six parts but also missing. I think it'd be different if I wasn't having to deal with bootleg/fan re-constructions of events because episode two (as we'll discuss) is a total change in everything what with being able to see it.

But thank goodness it survives in whatever form and we get to talk Troughton some more and so soon (and even more soon too!). It's also the return of Innes Lloyd as producer and Peter Bryant as script editor after a small detour we got in "Tomb of the Cybermen". And it's nice to see him back. I find I quite like Innes Lloyd and what he brings to the show overall. And then we also get some more Victoria (always cool) and Jamie (although it's not his best) and we get to start talking about this big ol' procession of Monsters thing that will persist throughout the rest of Troughton's era. And I love that we get to talk about all that.

Sigh. I just wish it all existed and only existed as a four parter.

So let's get to it!