Serial 55: Terror of the Autons

Doctor: Jon Pertwee (3rd Doctor)
Companions: Jo Grant

Written by: Robert Holmes
Directed by: Barry Letts

Editor's Note: Hey, kids! I'm back with a quick quick intro to point out that Cassandra is on board to talk about some Autons today. It's a doozy of a story with a lot of moving pieces, and I honestly felt good about giving it up because there's still a bunch of great stories left to do so why not share the wealth? And with this story we're in the last four months of the blog! Hoo-rah!

But for now, I leave you with Cassandra...

Background & Significance:  So the announcement of Season 8 was a pretty big deal for Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks.

Due to the nature of Doctor Who's production scheduling, and how a creative changing of the guard takes some time, Letts didn't really get a chance to make much of a mark on Season 7.  However, with the advent of Season 8, there were quite a few changes.

Among these changes were the introduction of a gimmick of some sort to get new audiences tuning in to watch.  This gimmick arrived in the form of the Master, a Moriarty to the Doctor's Sherlock Holmes.  Letts and Dicks hoped that the Master might overtake the Daleks as the top foe for the Doctor, and aimed to include the Master in each of the 5 stories in Season 8.

Another change was the decision to not bring back companion Liz Shaw, who was deemed too independent to really work well with the Doctor.  The decision was made to bring on a male/female team reminiscent of Jaime and Victoria in the form of Jo Grant, who would assist the Doctor, and Captain Mike Yates, The Brigadier's second in command.  There were even plans for the hint of romantic possibility between the two, and it totally shows (and oh man, I ship them so hard).

Written by Robert Holmes and directed by Barry Letts, "Terror of the Autons" promises to be something fantastic, especially on a rewatch.  I'm excited.  Are you excited?  Because I am.

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

Serial 59: The Daemons

Doctor: Jon Pertwee (3rd Doctor)

Companion: Jo Grant

Written by: Guy Leopold (aka Robert Sloman and Barry Letts)

Directed by: Christopher Barry

Background & Significance: It feels like we've been talking about The Master season a lot lately. You know the one. It's season eight. Pertwee's second season. The one in which The Master appears in every bloody story. I don't think that's far off. I mean, two of the last three Pertwee stories for the blog have been season eight. I just watched "Terror of the Autons" for the first time back in January. And "Claws of Axos" was a fairly recent story we covered on the podcast a few weeks back.

So if I sound a little weary of the season, you now know why.

But "The Daemons". Yes. The season finale to this Master season. And it's the one in which "The Master Problem" is solved "once and for all" until we get to the next appearance by him later. Regardless, it is the closing of a book of Master stories, I suppose. And it's fitting that it's a story co-written by the era's producer Barry Letts and the other half of that co-writing team is something of a "regular appearance" for the era, in that Letts's co-writer Robert Sloman would be the co-writer for the rest of the Pertwee season finales. It's one of the things I like about the Pertwee era. You can always count on a story in each season to be written by Malcolm Hulke. And once you hit the "UNIT family" stuff you can always count on a season finale written by Sloman and Letts and for that season finale to USUALLY be a good thing. (There is the one glaring exception, though).

To ring out the season, Letts (and Sloman because he was involved) decided to explore a specific paganistic and black magic iconography they hadn't yet seen in Doctor Who. 

As such, and because it's widely considered such an iconic story for both the era and The Master, it has been celebrated up and down the halls of Doctor Who fandom as one of "the great Master stories". While my initial watch of the story is hard-pressed to disagree, I think I'm most interested to see how it pans out on a repeat viewing and when I'm taking it apart and all that. It'll also be especially interesting to see the directorial style of Christopher Barry, who is something of a hit-and-miss director as far as I'm concerned. But yes. We will see.

So let's get to it!

Serial 56: The Mind of Evil

Doctor: Jon Pertwee (3rd Doctor)

Companion: Jo, Benton, Mike Yates, The Brigadier

Written by: Don Houghton

Directed by: Timothy Combe

Background & Significance: After the rousing success of "Inferno", the Doctor Who production team of Terrence Dicks and Barry Letts asked that story's writer, Don Houghton, to return for the subsequent season to contribute another story to the show. To direct, they brought in Timothy Combe, who had successfully directed "The Silurians" in the previous season.

So really, they were just setting themselves up to win.

This result was "The Mind of Evil", the second story of Pertwee's second season. For those keeping score at home, yes, that means we have some Master here. But more interestingly/importantly, it also means we're in the middle of the UNIT heyday. The Doctor is still confined to Earth and, aside from a small stint in low orbit in the previous season and a quick pop over to a parallel Earth (also last season but I hardly think these count), he hasn't even left it in quite a while. It wouldn't be till the next story that he gets limited control of his TARDIS back and the story after that, he's suddenly able to jump off world for the occasional adventure abroad, which wouldn't subside ever, effectively killing the UNIT era, or at least dooming it to a slow and painful death.

But this story at least allows some form of status quo, and a proper Master story the likes of which we haven't seen before. Last time we had to introduce him. This time we get to see what he can do. And we get to see UNIT deal with it.

If there's one sadness about this story, it's that it only exists in black and white. Then again, I can't complain too much because that gives it the look of a badass, dashing 60s spy movie. Unlike "Ambassadors of Death" (where the black and white is nowhere near as effective), this comes off closer to the first episode of "Invasion of the Dinosaurs", where the black and white creates far more ambiance and soul to the show than anything in colour could have. But it's a nice last hurrah for Houghton and Combe, both of whom never return to the program (the former because he got a better gig working for Hammer films, the latter because he couldn't keep this story to budget in any meaningful way) and one of the first last hurrahs of the UNIT era.

So let's get to it!

Serial 58: The Colony in Space

Doctor: Jon Pertwee (3rd Doctor)
Companion: Jo Grant

Written by: Malcolm Hulke
Directed by: Michael E. Briant

Background & Significance: After "The War Games", the Doctor Who production team very famously (and wisely) decided to confine The Doctor to Earth. Teaming him up with the international military force UNIT, the goal was to limit the cost and scope of Doctor Who in order to save money. In a way, you could think of it as them putting Doctor Who on something of a diet, with them being responsible about their boundaries and such.

But like every good diet, the production team would occasionally raid the fridge in the dead of night for some chocolate cake and take The Doctor away from UNIT and out into the cosmos for something a bit more gallivanty.

Let's call this their first chocolate cake.

Written by Doctor Who stalwart Malcolm Hulke (the only writer to contribute at least one story to each Pertwee season) and directed by Michael E. Briant (famous for such high points as "The Sea Devils" and "Robots of Death" and such low points as "Death to the Daleks" and "Revenge of the Cybermen"), "The Colony in Space" has something of a mixed reputation. Sure, it's notable because The 3rd Doctor FINALLY leaves Earth (although I'd hardly call that a problem), but beyond that...

I dunno. I think this first "cheat day" really gave them something of a bit of a stomach ache.

What I find most interesting is how long it took them to get us to this point. The 3rd Doctor is really only confined to Earth for about a season and a half before he's given permission to leave. Sure, he's on a leash by the Time Lords (how else would he get off the planet?), but it doesn't change the fact that this is the start of the end for the UNIT era in a lot of ways. Sure, there's plenty more great UNIT stories to go after this, but allowing The Doctor to go off and have adventures on his own is something of a betrayal of the core concept of his era if you ask me. And... well.. we should probably talk about how well it fares because... well... is it just a minor cramp or a full on flu virus thing?

Ugh. Enough with the metaphors.

So let's get to it!

Serial 57: The Claws of Axos

The Doctor: Jon Pertwee (3rd Doctor) Companions: Jo Grant


Written by: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
Directed by: Michael Ferguson

Background and significance: With the departure of Patrick Troughton after just three seasons, Doctor Who saw yet another dramatic shift in content. For one thing, starting here the show is recorded and broadcast in color. The writers/producers also sought to reduce the show's content by trapping The Doctor on Earth. As a fallout to Troughton's final serial, "The War Games" (which I will blog about and I know when that's happening, so stay tuned...), The Time Lords force a regeneration upon Troughton's Doctor (regenerating him into Jon Pertwee, the third incarnation) and send him back to Earth, with his not-functioning TARDIS. They strip him of the complex mathematics necessary to fly the TARDIS again and place blocks on his memory (more on that later) to keep him from taking to the skies.

With no other options, The Doctor turns to UNIT and they bring him on board as their scientific advisor while he tries to fix his TARDIS. What we're left with is The Doctor stuck on Earth working for UNIT. Which is awesome (if you ask me, anyways...).

Oh. And The Master shows up.

Pertwee's second season saw the birth of a new arch-nemesis foe for The Doctor: The Master. Extremely famous, he was designed to be the Professor Moriarty to The Doctor's Sherlock Holmes. The writers brought him on with a hard push in season two, giving him a role in every serial. The Claws of Axos is the third serial of the season consisting of four episodes. By this point, The Master has appeared twice and is now considered a threat. And that's where we start.

So let's get to it!