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 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 14: The Crusade

Doctor: William Hartnell  (1st Doctor)

Companions: Vicki, Ian, & Barbara

Written by: David Whitaker

Directed by: Douglas Camfield

Background & Significance: Season two of Doctor Who saw the first major paradigm shift on the show. Susan left and was replaced by Vicki (which is the obvious major shift), while behind the scenes David Whitaker stepped down as script editor and was replaced by Dennis Spooner. Whitaker stuck around, though, writing a variety of different stories all the way up until the first season of Pertwee's tenure and always doing something interesting (as Philip Sandifer is always eloquently pointing out).

So this is one of the stories he writes, and it's unique because it's the only historical he wrote, so we get to see what it's like to have a David Whitaker historical.

Last week we talked a lot about Robert Holmes and how he was one of three influential writers on the show. David Whitaker's the big one in that list because of the way he shaped the show at key early moments in its history. He was the script editor who saw The Doctor through a series of "firsts" and the writer who happened to write the first post-regeneration story AND the "last Dalek story" (again, read Sandifer for more). That said, an historical from him is worth noting to say the least and interesting because this season sees one from him and one from then-script-editor Dennis Spooner, so it's interesting to see how they play off each other.

It's also interesting to really see the first story properly directed by Douglas Camfield. Camfield had previously directed one episode of "Planet of Giants" and would go on to direct a myriad of other great stories, being probably the best director of the first half of Classic Who. It's also the first appearance of Julian Glover (who would go on to eventually be the great Scarlioni) and Jean Marsh (who played both Sara Kingdom in "Daleks' Master Plan" and Morgaine Le Fey in "Battlefield"), which is rather wonderful, and one of those stories that's firmly set with this specific TARDIS crew. Ian and Barbara are not quite leaving yet (they get another story before their departure one) and Vicki has been around for two more stories before this. So this (like "The Aztecs") is something of a banner story to display how this team works together now that they're going strong but don't have the inclinations to leave yet.

So it's should be interesting.

Now let's get to it!

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 124: Snakedance

Doctor: Peter Davison (5th Doctor)

Companions: Nyssa, Tegan

Written by: Christopher Bailey

Directed by: Fiona Cumming

Editor's Note: Hey, kids! Matt here! Not stepping in this week because I promised Cassandra a good story and because I had already decided I would be fine with "just" doing "Kinda" I [foolishly] promised her "Snakedance" before I had seen it. So she's in this week and I'm left angsting that I don't get to write it. Ah well. It was nice to watch it again (which I just finished doing. TMI?) and while I'm sad I don't get to tackle this story in a blog capacity, I have no doubt that Cassandra will do a bang up job because it's a rich, kick ass story with tons and tons of things to talk about. And hopefully it won't be in the vein of the epics we've been doing around these parts lately. God knows we don't need another "Kinda"-length entry any time soon. Last week's was long enough.

But I'm talking. I do that sometimes. Shutting up now and turning it over to Cassandra for her thoughts on the return of Christopher Bailey and Fiona Cumming.

Background & Significance:  There's something about sequels in Doctor Who.

Because television tends to be more serialized than movies, it's interesting whenever a TV show chooses to do a sequel, especially considering the more moder and character arc-centric approach inherent to its storytelling foundations. But with Doctor Who sequels, I tend to be pretty wary of them, because they're usually pretty rubbish. I mean, look at "Monster of Peladon".  Same writer, same director, same Doctor, same production team, different Companion, and somehow it managed to take a completely awesome story in "Curse of Peladon" and come up with... well, a crap sequel.

So when I heard that there was a sequel to "Kinda," I wasn't entirely sure what to think. And then we watched it.

And it was awesome.

"Snakedance" is significant because it is a sequel.  It was broadcast during Season 20, the 20th anniversary year of Doctor Who. JNT and Saward wanted the year to be epic, so each story in the season was designed to bring back an old adversary of the Doctor.  Of course, the Mara sort of sticks out like a sore thumb because it was just introduced in the previous season.  But I think that's why it's better than just about every other story in the season.  That, and Christopher Bailey is a boss at writing awesome things.

It's also pretty significant because of its cast, which is expertly wrangled together by director Fiona Cumming. Brian Miller, husband of Elisabeth Sladen, is in this story in the role of Dugdale, which is pretty awesome.  And it's the first television role of Martin Clunes (Lon), who is a prominent and award-winning actor in the UK, which I guess is kind of a big deal.

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

Serial 85: The Seeds of Doom

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Sarah Jane Smith

Written by: Robert Banks Stewart
Directed by: Douglas Camfield

Background & Significance: Each story in Tom Baker's second season covered a Doctor Who twist on a different horror movie. The season had already done a version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Mummy, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (twice!), Frankenstein. "The Seeds of Doom" was loosely based on "The Thing From Another World" (better known in modern circles simply as "The Thing") and a famous science fiction novel called Day of the Triffids, which, for those who don't remember, is about a bunch of killer plants.

So yes, this story is probably best remembered as "that one with the plants".

"The Seeds of Doom" is the final story of Tom Baker's second season and the second of the three six-parters in The Hinchcliffe/Holmes era ("Genesis of the Daleks" being the first, "Talons of Weng-Chiang" being the third), and it was at this point that Doctor Who was at its most popular ever. Tons of people were watching week-to-week. Mary Whitehouse was screaming as often as she could about how Hinchcliffe/Holmes should be fired because of the show's violent and horrific content (thereby bringing in more people to watch it because that's what hype does). Holmes was gaining more and more influence on the show's writing, so much so that starting in the season following this one he was allowed to write two stories a season, a huge move against traditional BBC policy, which explicitly forbade a script editor from commissioning his own scripts. Hinchcliffe was pushing the budget more and more and more and making the show into a gorgeous looking thing so the sets that weren't made of two planks of plywood and a loofa. People were eating it up.

Not only that, but this is Tom Baker at some of his stunning, stunning best. It's Elisabeth Sladen running around and having a jolly time and being one of the best companions ever. Its dastardly, evil villains who are some of the best I've ever seen. It's brilliant, engaging science-fiction storytelling. How telling then, that this is the second and final script from Robert Banks Stewart, a famous writer for popular spy action drama show "The Avengers" (no, not THOSE Avengers, the other more British ones) who returned to Doctor Who after his great turn writing "Terror of the Zygons" and who infused his scripts with tons of action and adventure to the point where it really does feel like Doctor Who doing their spin on The Avengers. How choice, then, that they always paired him with the-oft-and-rightly-lauded director Douglas Camfield, who did some of the best action-centric Doctor Who of the Classic Era.

Can you tell we're in for a treat?

So let's get to it!

Serial 142: Revelation of the Daleks

Doctor: Colin Baker (6th Doctor)
Companion: Peri Brown


Written by: Eric Saward
Directed by: Graeme Harper

Background & Significance: In a lot of ways, "Revelation of the Daleks" represents the end to a number of eras in Doctor Who. Coming at the end of Colin Baker's initial season (which is problematic, to say the very least), this story really signified an ending to the first twenty two years of Doctor Who. From here on out, Doctor Who would be on borrowed time, always under the threat of cancellation. Always with a far abbreviated season than what it was typically used to.

It's also the end culmination of four years of Eric Saward as script editor. How fitting, then, that he should be the fellow to write it.

Because the Daleks always elevated the show's ratings, Producer John Nathan-Turner sought to bring them back for another season after their success in the previous one. Despite the fact that script editors weren't allowed to commission themselves to write for their own show, Saward somehow managed to wriggle his way around the legal workings of this by writing the scripts in the six weeks leading up to the renewal of his contract as script editor for the next round of Doctor Who. It's underhanded, sure. But he wanted to write The Daleks and Davros, and he'd be damned if he'd let any other "unexperienced" writers go out and write them in his stead.

To direct, the production team brought back the excellent Graeme Harper to handle the proceedings. So that's a plus.

But really, it's just the end result of the show's direction over the course of the previous four years. It effectively kills Colin Baker as The Doctor and is his last proper televisual adventure ("Trial" is a more complicated animal and not exactly the most proper of adventures where every "week" he's somewhere new) and is the last time location shooting for the show was shot on film. Location shooting in the future would all be shot on video tape. It's also the last script written by Eric Saward and is very... Sawardian in all its proper respects. As I'm so wont to say, Doctor Who writers only ever seem to get more themier (Moffat only seems to get Moffatier just as Davies only ever seemed to get more Daviesier) and "Revelation" proves itself to be the Sawardiest script of all the scripts he ever wrote for the show.

Wonder how that'll turn out.

So let's get to it!

Serial 22: The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve

Doctor: William Hartnell (1st Doctor)
Companion: Steven, Dodo

Written by: John Lucarotti & Donald Tosh
Directed by: Paddy Russell

Background & Significance: Last week we talked about "The Web of Fear", which was a story that we could only judge by viewing the quality of the direction/design of the first episode (the only one to exist) and then extrapolating the quality of the rest by taking the what we know from the first episode and coupling it to the existing audio and the rest of the script. It's a crude science, but it's the best we can do given what we have and it's hardly the worst thing ever. At least we have the audio. And the audio is riveting. And the screencaps we have paint an almost picture of what it looks like this thing looked like in moments.

And then every so often, you'll get a story that doesn't exist (is all audio) and once in a very long while you'll get a story that is severely under telesnapped.

Enter "The Massacre".

"The Massacre" is one of the most unique Doctor Who stories ever, despite the fact that on the surface it doesn't seem to be doing anything revelatory or special. Part of this is down to the fact that we have John Lucarotti on the typewriter once again. For those not in the remember, this is the guy who "created" the historical (if you assume that "An Unearthly Child" wasn't so much a historical as a story that just happened to take place in he generic past rather than being a "true" historical) when he did "Marco Polo" and followed it up with "The Aztecs".

In a lot of ways, this is the third in those loose trilogy of stories from a thematic basis. Where the first story was about a TARDIS crew who adamantly refused to get involved in the contemporary events in any way, shape, or form and the second story was about the TARDIS crew threatening to ruin the foundations of history, "The Massacre" established a further discussion of history by dropping the TARDIS crew (just The Doctor and Stephen at this point) in the middle of a terribly dark and harsh historical climate. What results is... revelatory. It's one of the best examples of John Wiles's influence on the show and how he helped trailblaze a new and completely different path from his predecessor Verity Lambert.

To put it simply, in a season full of experimental stories that try to define "what is Doctor Who" and push the boundaries of what the show can and cannot do, it's telling that "The Massacre" is right up there with "The Daleks' Master Plan" in terms of doing something special and memorable given Doctor Who's early format.

It's also notable for being the first contribution of director Paddy Russell, who would go on to direct a series of other great and memorable Doctor Who stories and one of the few stories to have an evil Doctor doppelganger, giving William Hartnell the opportunity to be the Evil Abbot of the story. That all said, it's unfortunate that this story is completely missing, also that it doesn't even really have any screencaps to speak of (I assume this was Wiles's fault/decision, but I could be mistaken) so the entire story is based almost entirely on its aurality.

Then again, if you're going to have only one story based on its aurality...

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 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!